Ageless Diversity
by ArawnHunter
Summary: The Primordial of the pit is rising. A new prophecy is revealed. But Percy isn't the same, and neither is Annabeth. He's changed and she's longing for the boy she met when they were twelve. Cap is set on saving Bucky, and Tony is on this new Spiderman. Set during Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame. Post-BoO. Phase of rewriting, plot might be messy in first few chapters.
1. Eyes Older Than Body

**Hello there fello reader and maybe writer...**

 **So here this is.**

 **This is a try-out chapter to see if the main idea for the plot is liked or wether it's not. I really hope it's liked. If it is, then I'll continue updating until the story is done, if it isn't, then I will probably just take it down or something, it all depends on YOU.**

 **So here goes nothing. (Rewritten 27 May 2018)**

 **.**

 **X-X-Maiores Oculorum Corporis-X-X**

( _Eyes Older Than Body_ )

-.-.-

10th November

-.-.-

His shield went flying against a…Steve hadn't the vaguest idea of how to even begin describing the thing he was fighting. First it was a beautiful woman, then she was something that seemed to resemble the monster that parents told their children didn't exist. First she was wearing red high heels, and the moment later she had a metallic leg and the other resembling that of a donkey. He could only wonder what it was, as the shield flew back into his ready and steady hands.

If he could have a wish granted, he'd wish for this _woman_ to be his only problem, but truth was, it really wasn't. There were others like her and not so much. Other types of these _monsters_ —because he had no doubt that's what they were, stood in between a sort of briefcase and the small team Fury had sent to retrieve it.

Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye by the public, was shooting volley of arrows after volley at the monsters in front of them, but they didn't seem to do anything but pass straight through them. This was forcing him to use his actual bow to physically fight them. Natasha on the other hand, could not use her guns as they were way too short a distance, instead she'd broken off some pipes from the old warehouse they were in, and used that instead. With enough force, they killed.

SHIELD had sent them after this briefcase upon noting its signature being abnormal from what was a norm for them. They went after it, thinking it'd contain some left overs from the Battle of New York, something someone might have liked up and hid in an abandoned building such as this one. After all, New York had happened only months ago. It was still in the air.

Yet the monsters they were fighting looked nothing like the aliens that had followed Loki out of a wormhole in the sky and into the city. No these monsters were something different and it was ending up to be a very hard task to fight them, when they kept chaining in front of their eyes. Maybe too much work for a briefcase.

"What are these things?" Clint yelled over the noise of monsters yelling for their blood and their weapons clashing.

"I don't know," Steve spoke through the com they all had in their ears. "Just keep fighting." It was easier said than done, when they kept on not dying. To never stay down. Time would wear them out and then they'd be toast.

He aimed to make his shield go through another array of monsters, but before it could, something else did. A bronze dagger. Not the rusty type that is found in museums but, shiny bronze glinting in the small light that it caught as it moved. The monster —one of those ladies— like never before, exploded into a shower of dust and fell to the floor to reveal a teenager, barely a man standing behind it.

Steve quickly noted the rage behind the teen's eyes. Having a split second to look more carefully at the guy, he found confession clouding his thoughts as he acknowledged what lay beyond those irises. The years of pain so clearly displayed and so raw. Steve wouldn't have been surprised to know that he was much older than he claimed. After all, he was over a hundred in the body of a thirty year old.

Steve was also quick to note the scar that ran from his right temple down to his cheek. Not seeming to ruin the guy's vision by loads, but still leaving some scarring around the eye. And then there was the hand—not fully visible due to the long coat he wore but he saw it clearly. Metal.

The teen turned around, quicker than human eyes could follow. His dagger swooshing through the air and meeting another target. A kick up and then a stab down, another one of the monsters disintegrate into nothing. The teenager tore through them, looking like a demon for most of it but he seemed to be knowing what he was doing. It took him ten minutes to kill the horde of monsters that after half an hour the three of them hadn't managed to get down. All that remained from them was piles of golden dust, almost like sand.

Steve watched, along with Natasha and Clint, as the teen sheathed his dagger and started to walk to the briefcase. Intent became clear to him and Steve stopped him, "Wait!"

The mysterious teen stopped, not really looking intimidated but then again, he couldn't see the face. He inclined his head just slightly, showing he was listening. But he didn't turn around.

"We need that briefcase—" his words weren't even out of his mouth that the teen was making a grab for the case.

Clint was quicker than him this time, notching an arrow in his bow and pulling back the string. Being blunt about so that the threat mad itself known to the boy standing just still enough that he could possibly hear his own berthing. "Don't move," Clint warned him.

The teen didn't listen, instead moved, just so slightly triggering Clint's response to let the arrow fly. Steve was almost sure they were going to have to explain themselves why they fired at a teenager, what he didn't expect was for the guy, not even a man yet, to twist his body in the split of a second and catch the arrow in his right hand —the one Steve suspected wasn't a hand at all— inches from his face. He didn't even look fazed by it.

After that, he bent his legs to grab the case in his other hand. "This doesn't have to end badly," he said, his voice deeper than Steve had imagined. He wasn't surprised. After aliens invading New York, there wasn't much that could surprise him anyway. The teen snapped the arrow like one would a twig, Steve wasn't surprised, he was confused. "It's better if you turn away and forget you ever saw me." His voice held warning, but also sadness in it. Like he wished it wasn't so.

Steve's grip on his shield tightened. "You know we can't do that," he said. "We were sent here to collect the case. Can't exactly go back without it."

The boy's eyes flashed dangerously, yet it didn't seem like he wanted to fight them. He seemed to be fighting with himself. "I need the contents, I'll give you the case, but I need the contents."

Natasha dropped the two pipes she held in her hands, allowing for them to clatter to the ground and make some noise no one wanted. She stepped towards him, Steve noted him standing his ground, squaring his feet, readying for a fight. Left foot forward and right behind. He was right handed, no surprise there as it was metal.

Her voice was persuasive. "Darling, we didn't come here for a briefcase," she said. "We came for its contents. Hand them over. You don't want this to end in a fight."

His jaw clenched. Muscles in his cheeks feathering. "You're right, I don't," he said. "But I also can't give this to you. It isn't for people like you."

Clint frowned, lowering his bow to his side. "People like us?" he questioned, raising an eyebrow. "Look, how about you come with us, so you get to hold on to the case, and we get to go back to base with it."

"I'm not an idiot," the teen said. Clint's —'Could have fooled me'— was ignored as the guy continued. "Now, please. Let me go."

Steve slacked his hold on his shield as he too, took a step towards him. "Look kid, we need the case and if you hand it over, slowly, without engaging, you can go. No one will know we ever saw you. But we need the case."

"No you don't." Steve saw the decision he was making before he made it. He saw the teen's eyes wonder around the room, looking and then the moment the words were out of his lips, he made a run for it. He spun around and bolted.

Steve had given him a chance to make this end easily, to walk away, it was his own damn fault he hadn't taken it. He sent his shield flying towards the teen, straight towards his back. For a moment he thought he was going to break his back but then the teen jumped —somersaulted— into the the air and when he landed, his feet were on top of the shield.

He didn't pick it up, or throw it back at him, instead kept running in the direction. Natasha and Clint were already on his tail and Steve was running too, picking his weapon upend telling them, "Split up!"

They split into three different directions as the boy ran further inside the warehouse that they had the misfortune to find themselves in. It was big, and tall and Steve —who was following directly behind him— didn't understand why he was going up. It was a dead end for sure. What he also didn't understand, was how the boy managed to keep ahead of him.

A quick thought of a serum came to mind, but he pushed it away. He had the feeling this was something different. This was something else.

Against his thoughts, the teen found ways to go both up _and_ down, since the warehouse was seriously big. They ended up on the first floor of the house. An empty floor where the kid decided to stop and Steve could see why. There was a lot of space, which would be good for a fight, not for him tho. No, they would have the upper hand here.

Steve was behind him, while Natasha and Clint appeared out of two doors opposite each other. They made a triangle around him, surrounding him in between them.

His breathing wasn't labored, not as much as it should be after ten minutes of sprinting anyway. His eyes kept on scanning the area, every corner and ever pillar. Steve could recognize a caged animal when he saw one, and he felt sad for him but a mission was a mission. They wouldn't be beat by a teenager. Not today.

He went for his pockets, and Steve braced himself for a grenade, instead the kid brought out the knife from before. Small, but Steve had already seen it kill and disintegrate. He wasn't about to underestimate it, and his skill to use it. He took a defensive stance, the knife in his right hand.

Steve took a moment to asses the situation, asses him. This was not someone ordinary, he would need to be brought in. He noted how the kid's stance was flawless, something only experienced fighters had. He also noted his eyes, which kept darting across the room towards the doors that could be his escape before looking at Steve.

Clint was the first to attack. Firing an arrow which the kid dodged. Soon Steve followed into the fight, throwing his shield, to which the kid sidestepped, leaving for his metal frisbee to go bounce off a wall and come back at him. Natasha fired a taser at him. He simply grabbed the wired like the electricity running through them didn't hurt and yanked the gun out of her hands.

He aimed a good high kick at Steve's head, just before swiping low with his small knife. He stepped back, making to throw the shield at his face, but the boy switched grip of the knife and with his metallic hand, grabbed the shield and stopped it mid motion as Clint shot another arrow. An arrow which ended up bouncing off Steve's shield once the boy dodged it.

Natasha managed to land a solid punch at is side, making him stumble a little to the side, and Steve grabbed the opportunity to finish his initial act. He managed to smash his solid vibranium shield into his face forcing the kid to stagger back as he brought up a hand to his nose. It came out wet with blood. Something in his eyes flashed upon seeing his own blood.

Then two bullets found their mark in his left shoulder.

Steve didn't hear him cry out. Didn't hear him grunt or make a sound when the bullets hit him, which he found, extremely wrong. The bullets had come from behind him, so Steve turned around, to find Maria Hill standing there, a standard block 17 semi-automatic pistol in her hands and she seemed ready to shoot him again.

Steve was close to telling her to lower the gun, telling her it wasn't necessary when the kid made to move again him more and Agent Hill fired her third bullet. Steve turned to see the kid's thigh start bleeding. He was going to lose too much blood, and then he was going to die, and then they were going to have to explain that.

The kid dropped the briefcase, but he didn't stop walking towards him. So he threw his shield at him, not hard enough to cause injuries or break bones, but hard enough that when it made contact the boy fell to the ground, and didn't get up. He put him out of his misery, for now.

Clint ran up to the unconscious form and checked for a pulse at the neck. Steve would have done it if not for him, instead he walked to him to check the wounds, sending a glare at the female agent as well as saying, "That wasn't necessary. You could have killed him."

Clint was putting pressure to the wounds in his shoulder. "Technically he could still die. He needs a hospital."

Agent Hill shook her head. "No," she said. "We're bringing him to base for questioning. He can be taken care of there." Upon noting the look Steve gave her she added, "I never saw anyone take on one of you, forget three. He needs to be questioned."

"He's a child," Clint argued.

"I'm sure you don't believe that yourself," Agent Hill said. "After he so spectacularly whooped all your asses."

Natasha passed her. "Technically he didn't mine."

-.-

Pain was not welcomed, and truthfully neither was waking up to this world. But after what had happened, he felt like living was all he could do to retaliate for what they'd done to him. It was all he could do in other words. Still, waking up to find he was still of the world of the living, when there was nothing for him there…it wasn't pleasing.

Less so when the pain followed his conscious state. It seared and flared up in both his shoulder and his thigh. The feeling was not welcomed. Not after the fourteen years he'd spent in hell. Literally. The pain he felt now brought up bad memories, especially since his wounds were still sore, even though he had tried to bury them deep down somewhere.

His eyes opened groggily, his hands felt for the soft mattress beneath him. A soft mattress which meant he was in a bed, and…it had been long since he had last slept in a bed, let alone his own. The past few months he'd spent on the streets and…it wasn't like he had managed five star hotels.

For just a moment he closed his eyes, just, hoping he could fall unconscious and perhaps wake up under a bridge, and what he thought had happened had all been a bad dream. Yet the pain seemed very real and very _at the moment_.

His eyes opened in a flash and in a split moment, he was on his feet, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his right thigh, or in the shoulder. He looked down at his thigh, seeing a change from his tattered clothes, and felt tight fabric against the wound in his thigh, he saw the bandage around his shirt. All under a new pair of pants and top, matching black sweats with the emblem of some society on it.

It was a circle, a sort of bird in the middle of it and the words ' _Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division_ ' laminated around the bird. Still inside the circle. He didn't care what it was. He had no time to care about what it was. Right now he had to get the hell away from there, before word got out and… —a flash of lighting clouded his vision— he didn't want to think about.

He looked around himself, at the room in which he was in. It was all grey, the walls, the bed, the covers of the bed, the desk and the chairs. All very dull and boring, but to him grey was something else too. It was a pang of pain in his heart as he saw her eyes looking betrayed and then her leaving. It ruined him. He kept looking around, until he saw the camera at the top in a corner of the room, posed to look at the bed he had been so gracefully sleeping in.

He knew then that whoever had brought him here, knew he was awake and that they'd be making their way to him at the very moment. If he wanted to get out, he was going to have to think of something good and quickly. He hurried towards the window, put his hand on it to see that his right wrist held a band around it, he checked his other wrist. A twin band lay right there.

He looked out the window, he was _very_ high up.

Then the door behind opened two people walked inside and Percy stepped back from them. They didn't seem friendly. One he recognized from their fight, and he had it on good memory that she was part of the team that had saved New York from an aline invasion in the spring. Black Widow. The other man on the other hand…he had never seen him.

He looked like a pirate, if only pirates were real. Wearing a black eyepatch over his right eye, scar tissue all around it. A trench coat that reached behind his knees. His old self might have found the eyepatch something to joke about, but right now, he wasn't in the mood and he knew better than to. So instead he stayed silent and simply looked at them.

The pirate look-alike walked behind the dull desk in the corner of the room, sat down behind it and sent a piercing glare to him, something he might have found intimidating had he not been through what he had. He sent one right back, finding satisfaction when the pirate looked mildly surprised. He extended an arm behind him to the redheaded agent, whom handed him a file, which he placed on the desk and opened.

"Percy Jackson, huh?" he asked, although he didn't give the illusion to be interested. He waved to the chairs in front of the desk. "I'm Director Fury of SHIELD. Have a seat. Be my guest."

That explained the long name around the logo of the sweater he wore. It was an acronym. He thinned his eyes in confusion, how in hell had they managed to find his name. And how the hell was he supposed to explain why it no doubt said he was dead. He sat down in front of the director, thinking it wasn't going to ruin his situation for the worse.

"We had an AI run scans of your face, cooked up this file for me," the man informed him, answering some of the questions he was sure were clearly written in his features. "And as you were taking your beauty sleep I allowed myself to read through it. I must say, it's very interesting. Do you know why?" He only set his jaw firm, clenching his teeth shut. "It says here, you were born in nineteen-eighty. Care to explain how you come to look like you're in your late teens. Or another intriguing fact, it says here that you're _dead_."

He sighed within himself, knowing these kind of people. That outright signs of boredom was going to trigger them and net he could find himself in a raft prison under water. Yet he couldn't bring himself to talk, he could _answer_ those questions, not without alerting bigger beings than both himself and the director that he was still alive. Without signing his own death sentence.

The pirate guy continued. "But that's not all," he said. "It states here that your mother along with your stepfather died five months ago, which also seems to be the date of your death." He kept his black eye on him, trying to glare to squeeze out a response. He remained still and unresponsive. Fury continued, "Your biological father is unknown, and that you have a younger sister who currently lives in Eastern Manhattan.

"Your parents' death were caused by a sword, a bizarre weapon to carry around these times, don't you think? And yet you were carrying a small dagger with you when my men brought you in, and from their report it seems you can also use it pretty well."

"You're saying I killed my parents?" he asked the director, his voice low and dangerous. It was a touchy subject to him.

The director raised his hands. "I never said it, but you just did."

"I didn't kill them."

Fury stood, he started pacing the room. Going behind Percy. He didn't turn around to look at him, all he needed was to hear the words he was saying. "Do you know what this looks like?" he didn't wait for a reply. "Abusive step-father perhaps, you didn't like him, you went after him, and then your mother was in the way so she was just a casualty. Then faked your own death to not go under prosecution."

"I would never—"

The director interrupted him. "Tell me then, why have you been living on the streets for the past five months?"

Percy remained silent. This was a subject that was touching home and he feared that if he opened his mouth he would start talking and saying things he'd regret. That he was never going to get the chance to _avenge_ them, and he couldn't do that. He had to get out of here.

Fury walked back behind the desk, looking at him from the top, while he lowered his head slightly. "We've got ways to make people talk," he told him, seemingly getting impatient, but it wasn't harsh. It was almost understanding.

He looked up at him, his eyes void of any emotion. "Torture will get you nowhere with me, Director," was all he offered the elder man.

"There are other means to get you to talk," Fury told him, taking a seat back in the chair in front of him. Percy watched him carefully. "Your sister for example—"

He was on his feet, slamming his hands on the table the next moment. He knew it was a mistake —showing them his loyalty, his weakness, but his sister was his sister— but he'd already made it, and so he might as well just get on with it. "You even just look in her direction and I will bring hell upon you." His finger was pointed stiffly at the director.

Fury smiled, leaning back into his chair. "Now, why don't you answer my questions?"

Percy swallowed down, his throat bobbing. He calmed himself down, telling himself that violence would not get him out of there any sooner than what was going on. He glared at the director, he glared at the Black Widow as well just for good measure, then sat back down in the chair. Sinking into it. "They're none of your business," he told them. "It's my damn life, I do what I want."

"One call to the government and there'd be a cell wth your name on top of it in a second," the director told him, his voice low and dangerous. "There is evidence, there is motive. You could be seen as murderer of three, and that alone would grant you twenty years, minimum."

He clenched his jaw, then unclenched it. Looked around himself at the window and remembered how high up they were. Thought that even if he could still survive that high a fall into water, the glass wouldn't break easily. He looked down at his wrists, were the metal bands still lay. He thought about twenty years in prison.

He let a sigh escape through his nose. A deep breath. "I can't answer the questions you're asking me," he said to them at last. "Even if I want to. I _can't_."

"And why is that?" the Black Widow asked him.

His eyes flickered to her, then back to the director and for the first time he allowed for some emotion to slip through his mask of blankness. He allowed them to see that he was deep down, afraid of the consequences of his actions. Had been for the past five months. "Because they'll kill me if they realize I'm alive. And my sister.

"Who's they?"

"Gods."

 **-.-**

 **So did you like it? Did you not? Please review and let me know. I'm not asking for a specific amount, but I need to know if it's worth continuing this or if it's just a waste of time. A follow would suffice to let me know you are interested in what happens next.**

 **Thanks for reading**

 **Hunter XD**


	2. Wrong Balance

**XD I was so freaking surprised the day after I uploaded that first chapter, I already had 12 or so reviews and 30 or so follows. By now I've gotten 20 reviews and 50 or so follows. So seeing the data and reading the reviews, I see it was liked, so here is another chapter that I wrote.**

 **Hope you enjoy. (Rewritten 29th May 2018 — it's very different from the original version)**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _"And why is that?" the Black Widow asked him._

 _His eyes flickered to her, then back to the director and for the first time he allowed for some emotion to slip through his mask of blankness. He allowed them to see that he was deep down, afraid of the consequences of his actions. Had been for the past five months. "Because they'll kill me if they realize I'm alive. And my sister._

 _"Who's they?"_

 _"Gods."_

.

 **X-X-Libra Nefas-X-X**

( _Wrong Balance_ )

.

The director crossed his arms in front of him. His one good eyebrow raised in an arch. It was clear as the day outside that the pirate didn't believe him at first, but also, he wasn't surprised. After all alines had invaded New York in the summer, led by a demigod, who was also the brother of a another demigod which had actually helped them all. " _Gods_? Elaborate."

Percy shook his head, his own arms crossing in front of his chest. "I can't tell you," he repeated, allowing some desperation to leak into his voice because— "It's too dangerous."

The Black Widow's face was passionless. "Dangerous how?" she asked from where she stood behind the director. Man he was not enjoying this teaming up against him, hell the whole interrogation pissed him off.

He glanced at her, kept his eyes focused on her own for a solid three seconds before he faced the general direction of the director, although did not make eye contact. "Names have power," he repeated what he had been told unmentionable times. "You know Thor, so I'm guessing this doesn't come as a surprise to you."

"Are your gods the same as his?" the director questioned, his voice dull.

He thought about telling them more. About opening up about some of the things he knew. He knew there was little he could lose if the interrogation went bad —or worse than what it was at the moment— so he didn't see any reason whatsoever as to why he shouldn't just tell them. Keeping names out of course but he could tell them.

Hopefully spare himself from life in prison at the same time.

At this point in life, he wasn't a demigod anymore anyway. He didn't classify as a demigod, not after his father had disowned him and stripped him of whatever powers he'd had before that. His mind was a mess, and his feelings towards them were even more complicated. What he knew for sure, he wouldn't care about telling the director of SHIELD about them. They didn't deserve him sticking up for them, risking his own freedom for them, not after what they'd done to him.

Although there was a limit he was willing to put on, a line he would not cross. That would be telling the whole entire public of their existence.

If he could keep it secret though, only them knowing and whoever was listening beyond that camera —maybe not even them— then he'd do it. To save his own damn skin, because screw them.

"Turn off the camera, swear to me —on oath— that this won't leave this room, won't make it to the public's ear," he started. "And I'll answer all your questions. I won't give names, because doing that would mean telling them I was alive. But I'll answer you questions."

The director stared at him for a good thirty second. His one eye almost like it was piercing his soul. He didn't let that trouble him too much. He could hold it out. Then the director nodded off to the Black Widow and she brought out a commander which she used to turn off the red blinking light of the camera. He knew enough about those things to know it was off. He was still waiting for the second part though. No oath, no answers.

Then the director broke the ice. "You've got my word that anything said here won't be shared with anyone else. Not to the public, _or_ the government," Fury told him, his voice annoyed by having to be lenient to him. Percy felt a swell of relief at hearing the words.

He wasn't happy about it, because he feared an onslaught of questions approaching him, but it was something. It was a ticket out, he believed. He sighed deeply, moved a little in his seat. "Ask away, Director."

"What religion are you talking about," the director asked, not quickly. At a leveled tone, but like he had revised what he was firstly going to ask. No hesitation or contemplation.

He hesitated to speak, glancing around himself, feeling uncomfortable. "Greek," he said, his gaze flickering to the Black Widow before going back to the director. "Roman," he added. "Both of them are equally annoying."

"Why is that," the Black Widow asked, shifting where she put her balance, form right to left. Her hips moving with the movement. He didn't find her attractive, his mind was not into that anymore, hadn't been since that misfortunate day all those months back.

He swallowed, but not because he was nervous. "Well, they want to kill me," he said, almost like it was supposed to be obvious. "I think I've got many right to believe someone is annoying when they chase me around the states for six months just to kill me."

The director kept his arms crossed in front of him, although his hand rose to scratch his trimmed beard. "Why do they want to kill you?" he asked them. "You did something to displease them, perhaps. _Killed_ someone?"

Percy shook his head, and sadness started flooding the gates that held it well contained in a small part of him he'd tucked away. He reined it back in. "I didn't kill anyone," he said. "They've just had it for me since the day I was born. But _please_ , I don't want to talk about that."

Fury gave him 'the glare' as he'd started dubbing it. It had come his way many times so far and they'd been in the same room for little over ten minutes. He was sure that 'the glare' would have normal master assassins confessing all their sins in no time, but it didn't work for him. All he did to show he was affected by it, was glare right back.

At last the director lifted his glare and went ahead to ask, "Do you consider yourself a threat to humanity?" Changing the subject of the conversation broadly, although he knew they weren't done with the part about his past, what led him in the interrogation room.

"Yeah," he said without fully thinking about what he was saying. "I mean, I guess I used to be. Now there's nothing left of me that… _threatened_ humanity."

"What makes you say so?" the director asked, uncrossing his arms and instead leaning on the table, placing both his hands flat on the surface.

He started playing with his hands, twirling his thumbs, trying to crack his knuckles, succeeding with a few and not so much with others. This was close to touching home. "I used to be able to do these things, things which…I couldn't always keep them under control. I _was_ a threat, but I always had others helping me through it, guiding the way."

"And now you don't," Black Widow told him, almost sounding like she understood, like she might relate to what he was saying. "You're a loose cannon, now?"

He shook his head softly. "Now, I'm nothing," he said instead of answering her question. "They stripped me from what I was. I'm not a _threat_ to humanity anymore. And unless someone else starts a fight, then I'm not a threat at all."

"Why did you need the content of that briefcase?" Fury then asked him, change subject so roughly and bluntly he had to take a moment to acknowledge what he was saying. He needed a moment. The director hadn't sounded remorseful in the least, or touched by his _sad story_. He mildly remembered the case, the reason he'd ended up in there in the first place.

"I just do," he ended up saying. Telling them he needed it so he could build himself a better and bigger weapon wasn't really going to back up what he'd just said about being peaceful and abasing violence.

Fury sighed, and the Black Widow actually _rolled her eyes_ , like they saw right through him. Like this was an answer they'd heard a thousand times and this was no different. "You know the metal that's inside, don't you?" he asked him.

He looked carefully at the director before nodding his head yes. "I do," he told them.

"Then I'm sure you can tell us why we can't touch it?" Fury inquired. It sounded weird to hear it from them, that they couldn't touch the material when it hadn't been tampered with by other human materials. He never had see it happen. "Why it passes straight through us." He snorted, not able to keep it in himself and the director wasn't amused. "This isn't a game!" his tone increasing by every second he used to stall from the question.

"It's called Celestial Bronze," he said at last, relenting them the answer they sought. "It's a special metal from Olympus itself. Incredibly rare to find, and it's the only metal, along with other two that can send those blasted creatures back to hell."

"And how did _you_ know it was there?"

"I was told," he answered. "The guy knew I needed some of it, he told me where to get it, and before you ask, I have no idea why it was there. Just that it was."

There was a pause, the director seemed like he was in between calling him off on the crap he was saying but the Widow beat him to it, asking her own instead. "Those monsters you mentioned," she started. "What are they? And why couldn't I see them properly?"

"There this _veil_ , which shields mortal eyes like yours from seeing what the world is really plagued with," he said. "It's called the mist. And if you're really curious about what they are, search Greek Mythology Monsters up on google, it'll tell you all you wanna know."

"Are you saying you're not mortal?" Fury asked him.

The Black Widow cocked her head to the side. "Would explain why he looks like he's a teenager when he was born thirty-two years ago."

He felt a small pang of pain, of sadness as he remember how old he really was. How much time he had spent in a place of nightmares. "I was immortal for fifteen years," he told them, trying to explain without giving too much away. "Until the gods decided that they'd had enough of me, stripped me of that immortality, of the powers I had, and then tried to kill me. They _believe_ me dead, I wish it to remain that way, although I know it won't last forever."

"So you're mortal now?" Fury asked him.

He nodded, although softly. It wasn't like he didn't want to be, or that he missed immortality, it's just the _reason_ behind why he was stripped of it that irked him. "Yes," he said, answering the question. "But I'll always have a clearer vision than you'll ever have. Unless you open your mind, and invite them in. Otherwise the mist will forever do it's job."

Fury nodded his head. Then there was quiet. Long, and murderous quiet. Fury was looking at him in a way that annoyed him, and, in all honesty, put some pressure on him. He felt observed. Minutes passed, and Fury's eye remained fixated on him. Then he turned around, to watch the Black Widow. There was an interaction of features between them, a silent conversation which he didn't manage to grasp. Then Fury was turning around.

"You're an enhanced individual," the director started. "I've read the reports, about your skills…I can't let you go—" Fury held up his hand, stopping him from speaking the words that were on his lips. Stopping him from complaining about what he was saying. "I have another option for you though, one which might benefit you as much as it will us."

There wasn't much choice for him but to listen. He raised an eyebrow, urging the director to go on. To speak and stop making it so tense when it didn't need to be.

The director leaned on the table, leading towards him. "How would you feel going my team of Avengers, and on the sideline of that, SHIELD?"

He frowned. His eyebrows scrunched up. This was not the turn he had expected this conversation to head towards. "I've been talking about how there are divine beings out there for my head, and now you're asking me to join you're super boy band of superheroes which operate in the public?"

"SHIELD mostly," Fury corrected him. "You'd start off a level four agent, we'd send you on missions, you work on the field. Then when more global issues occur, then you join the Avengers. I'm sure they won't deny an extra hand of help. Especially when you're skills seem so extensive."

"I need to lay low," he repeated, not sure he had stretched that enough. He glanced at the Black Widow, she seemed all for it. Perhaps he'd get to know her actual name, instead of always referring to her as the Black Widow. Perhaps it wasn't so bad of an idea. But he seriously needed to lay low.

"You won't be known," Fury told him. "Appropriate clothing can be manufactured. A mask, a hood. Fake identity. No one, not in the facility of SHIELD, or wherever else will know your real name. You can do good for the world, if your weapon is aimed in the right direction."

Percy didn't seem so sure about it. Especially after the last statement.

Fury noted it. "A salary that pays well," he continued, feeling the uneasiness. The troubling choice. "You could buy your own home. The metal you were after, we could mold it into a weapon of choice. All you need to do is accept the job offer. Become a professional agent, become an Avenger, serve the people of this country. Be a soldier."

He thought about it, he really did, and the little voice at the back of his head told him no, no no no! But he heard the director. _I don't want to be a soldier anymore_. But he wouldn't need to sleep under a bridge anymore. He could visit his sister, he could get to know her, help her through college. He could help _her_.

He's have his own job, his own money. Hell _he'd be off the streets_. He'd even get that scrap of Celestial Bronze that had ended him up in this mess which was turning out to be less of a mess. Perhaps a sword, a proper weapon he could use to defend himself against those beasts that managed to escape Tartarus. But he'd be a danger. _He'd_ be in danger.

He said just as much. "I'll be a danger. I'm a danger to anyone next to me. Because I don't know if it'll be tomorrow. Or next week, next year or in a decade…but one day they will realize that they haven't finished their work. When they do…they're not going to hesitate like they did last time. And I don't want to be responsible for any more deaths than I already am."

"The offer still stands," Fury told him.

He didn't sound enthusiastic, he didn't look it. Honestly, neither was Percy, but this was something. This was an offer he couldn't reject and maybe they'd be in danger but he though it was about time he thought about _himself_ first. That he was selfish for once.

Natasha saw him contemplating, more on their side. "So what do you say?"

Since they pushed it… "I mean, I guess…sure."

-.-

They talked it over.

It was a lot to take in. It was…surreal to say the least how his life was tipping over into a completely different direction than it had looked like just the day before. It had been morning when he'd gone after the briefcase, then they'd brought him in, treated his three bullet wounds —which were barely painful anymore— and then waited about five hours for him to wake. After all he hadn't slept in a real bed for the previous couple of months.

Fury —yes, that's what he was going to address him as from now on— had explained where they were. A place called the Triskelion, SHIELD Headquarters in Washington DC. That meant that they'd _flown_ him in from Richmond —the place he had reached— and brought him farther up north to this —he wanted to call it a facility, but it was much more than that.

Director Fury left them after that, calling in another man instead of him. This one Percy also recognized from both the news and the fight they's had just hours prior. The man with the bow and arrows, or also known universally as Hawkeye. His name was Clint Barton, he quickly found out, when the man introduced himself, apologizing for the wounds he's sustained. The woman was Natasha Romanoff. They seemed to be good buds. No sign of the Captain though, he didn't seem to be anywhere around, or maybe he was just watching them.

They took off the bands around his wrists.

Then they asked him his information, name, surname, his height, his weight…that kind of stuff. It was all in the hard copy file they had originally brought in but they wanted it again, said it was better this way. Making sure the information wasn't compromised. Wasn't out of date. They then also asked him to verify that the various data points in his file were correct. Asking him about his school life, then going on to verify whether he was really born on the date displayed.

He tried being as elaborative as he could. After all, he was building a new life and new life meant he had to work with them to achieve it. They told him they'd think about his alibi another time, for the moment all they needed was a picture, which the laptop Clint had brought in took, off his face, and a signature on paper. He allowed for both, not knowing exactly what he was getting himself into, but he trusted the feeling in his gut, which told him he was doing it right.

He so hoped he was.

After _that_ , they took him on a tour of the place. The _Triskelion_. It was enormous and honestly, he quickly forgot where they had kept him for the past six hours. It didn't bother him nearly as much as it should have. After all, he should have been on high alert after everything that had been happening to him lately, but his gut told him this was right. So he believed it and followed it. It had never led him wrong before, why fail him now.

They brought him to the top floor of one of the columns of the building. He didn't know what to expect from it but wasn't so surprised when he was met face to face with the face of none other than the co-director of SHIELD. A man who introduced himself as Alexander Pierce.

He smelt something fishy from the man immediately, but couldn't pin point on it, so, exhausted and tired, and just done, as he was, he let it slip his notice. He let it slip away into some deep part of his brain where he wouldn't bother to look again.

Pierce talked to him, hours went by, he wasn't sure what was being said, because Pierce lost Percy's attention at the words, "We pride ourselves in the discipline of our agents…" He didn't care. Not that he was about to be part of those _agent groups_ , or that indeed, he was _about to be part of those agent groups_. The fact suddenly hit him, and it hit him hard.

Hard enough in fact, that he spent the next half an hour or so thinking about it. _He was going to become one of those agents he saw on tv_. He brushed that thought aside. Smiled internally, because all his life he had wanted to use his abilities to help others that needed his help, and now, even though he was an exiled demigod, he was being given a chance to do good in the world again.

When _that_ meeting was over —god above was he dying of boredom by the end of it— Clint and Natasha took him back under their watch and brought him to another one of the columns of the Triskelion. He got to experience the bridge connecting them a second time, and looking down, he had been ready to vomit or possibly have a seizure. He _did not like heights_ , not after what had happened. Nope. And the bridges were _very_ high up.

They led him through the north South Tower, until they reached what seemed to look like a training facility of some sorts. Many different areas, shooting ranges arrayed with both firearms and more… _medieval weapons_ , as Clint called them when he had said, "You got all the variety here. Look we've got your type of medieval weapons for you to use."

He hadn't laughed at the attempt of a joke. Instead kept silent as they led him through the training facility to a room, which was separated by glass and was visible through. He looked at them both questioningly. Clint looked at Natasha, but Natasha merely raised her eyebrow at him, urging him on, so Percy ended up looking at him, waiting for an explanation.

Clint cleared his throat. "What you do, is go in there," he started, his voice rough. "You choose the weapons you want and then hostiles will come at you. All you have to do is fight them. It's just to get a better understanding of your skills. Nothing more."

"It ends when they kill you," Natasha supplied afterwards. "Won't hurt, but will look real until the stimulation ends."

He looked at them both like they were crazy, like they were speaking another language. They might have as well been speaking another language. All this technology was going to give him a headache. It was going to kill him before any of those stimulated hostiles would. He was sure of it.

Clint looked him over. "Take it easy, though," he said, sounding confused about what he was saying. "You took three bullet wounds this morning. You shouldn't even be standing. Although I promise, if after this you're still standing you get rest."

"Well go in," Natasha urged him.

He did, he notes there were blocks randomly set around and about the room.

"Activate program Beta024, level one, continual," he heard Natasha speak from the outside of the glass chamber.

Then a female robotic voice, the same one he had heard in the elevator already a couple of times said, "Activating program Beta024." It all set around him. After a blue laser beam passed all over the room, holograms, which were very real created a setting around him. The voice spoke again, "Choose a weapon."

There was a display of weapon, they were holograms but…it was technology and he ended up holding a sword in his hand, a small dagger sheathed at his waist. It was very fake, but very real and it was obviously messing with his brain, but he didn't let it swallow it up. He sucked up his inexperience with technology and rather, allowed for the program to go on.

He held the sword out in front of him, not quite in a defending position, but ready to jump in one as soon as the enemy would appear. It didn't take long for it to materialize out of nothing and jumped in front of him, holding a sword in his hand much like his own. His brain went into overdrive, his instincts kicked in.

The hologram attacked first, and when he found himself parrying the blow to the side, he fond himself feeling the vibration of the clashing swords. Unlike his initial thought that he wouldn't feel it. It weirded him out beyond comprehension how they could manage something like this with technology but he didn't weigh on it.

The hologram came barreling back towards him at a full sprint and Percy got ready for the incoming attack, for the impact of the swords to come. When they did, he was fast at parrying the blow to the side, a jolt shooting through his right shoulder where the bullet wound was still very sore and not healed. He kicked the hologram in the gut, then stabbed through with the sword. The man shimmered before it disappeared.

The second level there were two adversaries, two men. Then came the third and there were three. As the number of the level increased, so did the number of hostiles. At level fifteen animals such as bears and wolfs were added to the mix but he kept going. Kept beating his odds. He had been full of adrenaline and nervous energy as he had talked to the two directors, now this was a perfect way and opportunity to get rid of it.

The exercise ended at level thirty-one, where he felt —mildly— and saw the tip of a sword sprouting from his chest. One of the opponents having stabbed him from the back. No pain though. It almost felt like —if this had ever been experienced— ago-puncture. Like a needle was in you and numbing the area of your body which was being injected with the substance.

Mildly numbing.

The feeling quickly washed away, and with it, so did the images around him, the room getting rid of the holographic setting it had created and leaving him to come back to reality. He didn't have a sword in his hands anymore, and there were no more opponents coming after him. He felt the sweat around the entirety of his body, his chest breathing unevenly.

He felt great.

He walked out of the room, not expecting it when someone else had joined the two Agents of SHIELD. One he had wondered where he had gone off to, after all, who didn't want to meet the legend that was Captain America. The other one however. Oh he was well aware of who he was, after even though he had not _been_ there to see it at the time, he would know Tony Stark even in a hundred years.

The genius didn't look amused.

It was then that he realized he was standing in front of four of the Avengers. Had he been anyone else, he might have fainted, been honored, but…he didn't feel anything as he stood in front of them. He didn't feel gratitude, he didn't feel like he had to thank them for it. No…it felt _right_. If that made any sense which he doubted it did.

He just stood there, looking at the four of them until, Rogers took the initiate and walked towards him, his hand extended. "I'm Steve Rogers," he introduced himself, a sheepish smile on his soft and young features. "But you might have of heard me as—"

" _Captain America_ ," he finished for the man, gripping his hand in a firm handshake. "Yeah, I know." He let go, not making it a long and awkward shake. "You're the one that smashed that frisbee in my face," he stated.

"Yeah," Rogers said, taking a step back and again, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry about that."

Then Stark waved his hand. "I like you," he said suddenly. Percy had the intuition it had something to do with him calling the shield a frisbee, the billionaire had smirked at that. "I don't need an introduction, I'm sure…?" he said, taking a step forward sideways, one hand in the pockets of his pants and the other stretched out for him to take.

Percy shook it, noting the red shades the man wore it. "Yeah," he agreed with him. He knew exactly who he was. They both took their respective steps back. "I'm Percy Jackson."

He had decided, he couldn't make himself be part of a team like them without being straight forward with his name. They would know, and hopefully, not share it with anyone else. If they did…well he was going to silently wish them hell as he took up running again.

One of Stark's hands remained in his pocket, the other started moving around. "You, like, the rest of _us_ ," he said somewhat stiffly. "Will have a…place to stay at the tower. I'm having it rebuilt, the A that was left standing after the Battle of New York will stand for _Avengers_. Sounds cool, right?"

He nodded along. "Sure, sounds great."

Tony stepped towards him. Placed one of his hands —the one that had been waving around in the air as he had talked— on his shoulder. "I wanna get to know you, Jackson," he said, and he sounded and looked completely serious. "Come, first you take a shower. You stink."

He was veered around, away from the other three Avengers, he heard Barton call out, "Don't ruin him, Tony."

And then Stark turning his head to them and saying, "Can't promise anything."

.

 **I'm trying to keep it so that there are about 4,000 words. If you want it longer just say so and I'll try to accommodate the needs...**

 **Review and tell me how this was if you've got the time. XD**

 **Follow this story if you want to know what happens next. XD**

 **Favorite this story if you loved these two opening chapters. XD**

 **Ignore the story and do as if you never read it if you disliked it. XD**

 **Hunter**


	3. Starting to Mistrust

**Hello there my felliw readers XD.**

 **A big THANK YOU to all of you who have taken it up to themselves to follow this story and leave a comment, means a lot XO. I mean, already at 96 followers with like, 6,700+ words, that's a new record...**

 **So, um, yeah... enjoy I guess. (Rewritten 31st May 2018 god is this smth else...)**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _Tony stepped towards him. Placed one of his hands —the one that had been waving around in the air as he had talked— on his shoulder. "I wanna get to know you, Jackson," he said, and he sounded and looked completely serious. "Come, first you take a shower. You stink."_

 _He was veered around, away from the other three Avengers, he heard Barton call out, "Don't ruin him, Tony."_

 _And then Stark turning his head to them and saying, "Can't promise anything."_

.

 **X-X-Dubitare Incipio-X-X**

( _Starting to Mistrust_ )

-.-.-

1 December

-.-.-

Four years later, he wasn't the newbie anymore. No, he was one of the most experienced, and —not part of the _founding_ Avengers, but he could say he was an old one. Even before Sokovia, they had worked together, fighting off Hydra and whatever small but great threats came their way. They were there to _fight the battles that normal people never could_.

Two years prior, Sam Wilson had walked into Steve Roger's life, and front there things had tumbled down regarding the Super Soldier. He hadn't been there for all of what happened, but…after Clint had so called retired from SHIELD, he, Steve and Natasha, had been their own team within the facility.

He hadn't been there when they had been bombarded at Steve's old training facility, but he had been having a little chat with Sam Wilson about Steve, when both he and Natasha both came in looking for shelter. After that he'd been there, for part of it. He knew more than either of them. And when the Winter Soldier attacked —he hadn't known who it had been— he hadn't engaged in the fight. Instead regrouped, where Hill had already told him they'd regroup.

Fury wasn't dead, biggie.

He probably should have been involved in the dismantling of the helicarriers, but, he hadn't been. Fury had told him to sit it out. He regretted it when he found himself on shifts in the hospital to look over Steve. Who had taken a serious physical beating, but only hope had sparked in him after.

After Ultron and Sokovia, well, they were more Avengers than they had been originally. The number had almost doubled, with the addition of Sam Wilson, James Rhodes, Wanda Maximoff and The Vision —who had an _infinity stone_ in his head. Now what _that_ was, he wasn't really aware. Thor had left after that, Bruce had left since the battle in Sokovia. It was…messy.

Regarding him, they all knew the same on Percy, what he had told Fury on his first day of enlistment and that he had something to do with gods. Nothing more and nothing less. They didn't know he was the _son_ of a god, or that he used to be able to control the seas and create earthquakes. There wasn't a need for them to know, not when he wasn't able to do that anymore.

Only two of them knew the a simplified version of the full truth, and that had been due to the many days they had been forced to spend in safe houses while away on missions. He hadn't told them all the details about what he'd been, what he'd been through, but they had a rough sketch of who he was in the core, his past deeds, and why he had ended up on the streets.

In public, he had gotten around to being dubbed ad _The Swordsman_. A name the public had given him, because he hadn't thought about it and Stark had put an online poll for names for him. Something he still needed to make Stark pay for because…it sounded silly and he didn't want it like that. He might have preferred if they just referred to him as 'The other one'.

Although it was messy, did not mean that he was going to pass up an offer from Clint —one of his favorite two spies— to go out for a dinner at their favorite steakhouse with the company of none other than Natasha. His other favorite super spy. The only two people, really, who knew he had been a half-god little more of four years prior.

They'd become a trio, all successful missions, until SHIELD was found to be Hydra and it all ended. Clint fully retired from the Agent life, and only kept to being an Avenger. Only coming out when the team needed him or, in cases like these, an friendly hang out with work colleagues.

"A table for three," Percy told the waiter at the entrance of the house. It wasn't a formal place, in fact they were all wearing jeans, with a comfortable top shaded on the dark side.

The waiter, a young man possibly still in college, nodded at them, then extend his hand out. "Right this way."

They followed the waiter around the house, until they reached a small table just the right size for them in the corner of the lobby. They sat down, getting comfortable, and with no need to look at the menu, ordered their meals. They'd been there enough times to know what they wanted. It wasted less time, and gave them a big interval to talk without getting interrupted.

Soon the young man was on his merry way to other tables, when Clint turned to him, a smirk on his face. "I heard you broke your sink," he said slyly.

Percy cringed, sighed and rolled his eyes. All in one and at the same time. Indeed he had. "Yeah," he said. "That happened."

"How'd it happen?" Natasha asked him, crossing her legs in front of her. Smoothly.

He was reluctant to tell them exactly why. It would mean admitting he had followed their advise, and as well, admitting out loud how much of a failure it had been. He talked. "Since I've shared my past with you guys," he started. "Then you ranted on how if I was persistent, they would eventually come back…well I did _try_. And the water almost killed me.

Natasha's groomed brow rose, Clint looked perplexed, like he was still wrapping his head around the idea he could have once controlled water. "How?" the latter asked, interested.

"Well I tried focusing, and the faucet exploded on me," he said, smiling sadly. "The water was boiling hot. I must have burned half of my chest with that. Still sore in fact."

"But…" Natasha said, a small smile on her red lips. "It happened because of you. It reacted to _you_."

He didn't understand. He frowned in confusion, "And?"

Clint on the other seemed to understand exactly what she had meant. He answered for her. "Don't you see? You managed to get a reaction from the water. That's a hell lot more than I can do already. That means that —whatever— connection you had, is still _there_. It means that if you concentrate hard enough—if you want it hard enough. Then maybe you can master it again."

He wasn't as optimistic. "Or it can mean that the damned god felt me trying to call on those powers, and this was a warning," he said gloomily. "Next time it won't be so kind."

Natasha pushed it. "From what you said, if your gods knew you were alive, they'd strike you down without hesitation. So why give a warning?"

"Unless he doesn't want you dead," Clint offered. "Maybe he cares."

He scoffed, but it was sad. He was sad. Heck he felt like trash at the moment. "He didn't seem to care when he disowned me. Or when he stripped me of all those… _gifts_."

"Boys," Natasha stopped them from continuing. "This was supposed to be a _fun_ night out. Mind not turning it into gloom doom? Very appreciated."

Clint picked up his knife and his fork, sat back in his chair and drummed them on the wooden surface. "She's right," he said, directing to Percy. "Let's not think about how screwed up this world is. Let's talk fun stuff."

The drinks were arriving. They were quick. And as the waiter was setting them all down —three large beers— time and sound stopped around him as he watched the girl entering the restaurant. His mind worked hard and fast to place the face he saw with a name—because he _knew her_. He just didn't remember her as clear as day.

Her blonde hair was loosely trailing behind her, flowing down her back in waves, and he admitted it even to himself, her beauty was attractive. Although face and name couldn't find their way together for some reason. She had gone to camp, when he had gone to camp, she was immortal, that much was also pretty obvious, but he couldn't remember who she was.

He worked on remembering, wrecking his brain and pushing it to move faster, but face and name still didn't connect and he saw what she held in her hand. It took him less than a millisecond to recognize the detonator in her hands, to frantically look at the two spies he regarded as family and yell, "Dock!" just before an explosion rocked the steakhouse.

He —along with everyone else in the house— was sent flying backwards, toppling against tables and chairs until he hit a wall. Debris starting to fall from the roof where the explosion had left a huge gaping hole right in the middle of it. Smoke started clouding the house. Quickly looking around, seeing through the smoke he checked whether there seemed to be anyone in immediate threat to death.

When he noted there wasn't, he ran towards where the girl had been.

Found her laying on the floor, her back against one of the pillars that had held up see through glass windows. In fact, a big shard of glass was piercing her side, her blood spilling and quickly pooling around her. Too quickly for her to have a hope in surviving until medics found their way to the scene. Before they found _her_.

There was clear hesitation in his action as he took his jacket off —god was he going to regret this, it was cold outside— and wrapped it around the wound, careful not to push the shard any further in, but he also couldn't take it out, that would make her lose more blood. Less time for him to ask questions he needed answered.

She was trembling hard, something he had gotten used to, seeing many people —many innocent civilians— slowly die in his arms as they rocked and saved the world. It was sad, but he was used to it. He could only be there and try to make her last moments be worth.

She reached out then, her hand raising from the floor and, he stopped her immediately when the metal bracelet caught shone in his eyes. A bracelet he had seen before, on one occasion really. Only glimpsed at it since he'd been in the heat of _a_ moment. He knew them to be the same, and suddenly, he felt his gut cave into his stomach. _Two hammers crossed_ were engraved on it.

A shiver ran down his spine as he recognized the symbol of the primordial.

His grip on her hand was probably tight enough to be uncomfortable. He didn't loosen it. "What's this?" he needed answers.

She started coughing up, blood leaking through her lips as she said, "I—I don't know."

He wasn't fazed by her pain, he didn't _care_ about it, because no one had cared about his when he'd been at his lowest. He couldn't find sympathy for her. He roared the bracelet around, getting a better look at it. "Who gave this to you? Why are you wearing it?"

The smoke was getting thicker, soon he'd have difficulty breathing himself. People were shouting around him, they were getting the fires out. There was a faint sound of sirens in the distance. He was running out of time. The girl —her name suddenly popped in his head, Lacy— started crying as she continued to cough up blood.

"I don't know," she repeated, and he felt the anger under his skin because she _was_ telling the truth. "I just know I have to wear it."

"Why did you set off the bomb?" he demanded her, again, the prospect that she was very close to death did nothing to bring him sympathy for her. Not when she had been working with _him_. When her tears turned to sobs, he lost some of it. "Just tell me!"

"I _don't know_ ," she wailed, her face getting real ugly. "I really don't know, Percy."

"Don't—" he warned her, his eyes flashing dangerously with raw anger. He did not want to hear any of them speak his name. His name on their lips wasn't wort it.

"I'm sorry," she continued crying. She repeated it once, then another time. "It hasn't been the same. Not since you left."

He was grasping at straws, he was in an ocean and without a life boat. He didn't understand what she was saying. "What do you mean?" he asked her, and yes, perhaps his voice softened at seeing the raw pain in her eyes. The raw sorrow for what she had just done.

"It—" More blood spluttered out of her mouth. "It—" she tried again but nothing more came out of her lips because then her hand slackened in his grip. The blood drained from her face slowly. He stared at her features relaxing as she lost the color in her skin. His face was a mask of blankness. Then he looked down at her wrist, glared at the _charmed_ bracelet, and slowly took it off, setting it into his pocket.

He felt the tingling in his fingertips, looking at them seeing them red, irritated almost like he'd had an allergic reaction. He couldn't — wouldn't — think about it. Not when he had a serious need of getting out of there before the officials came and started asking questions and getting names.

He looked back at her, at her blue lifeless eyes and with two fingers, slid them shut. She deserved that on the least. Plus, it wasn't a hobby of his to look at someone's dead eyes. Not something he wanted to add to the nightmares that already plagued his every sleeping moment. He massaged his forehead, leaning on the wall next to the dead daughter of Aphrodite.

Then he grabbed his jacket and threw it in the flames.

He sneaked out of the house before anyone saw him, although the fire-workers were already doing their job. He bailed on both his two friends, and then headed back to the compound —which was where was staying at the moment. He would go directly to his room when he got there, wouldn't bother greeting the others…

He needed some time.

-.-

Hours later, not quiet past midnight but very close he found himself in one of the offices, lit by thin LED lights along the sides of the room and across it. He found himself calling on FRIDAY —not Jarvis— and asking everyone to meet him there, because there was something really important which he needed to discuss with them. He hated how that made him sound.

Steve was the first one to arrive, looking awake and _sweaty_ , he greeted the Captain and wondered —not for the first time— over the words Ultron had whispered what seemed like so long ago, — _Captain America…God's righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war_ — he was wondering whether that actually applied. Whether Steve couldn't find purpose if he wasn't fighting.

Before there had been SHIELD, but now…he worried Steve had been working out, and he worried because he seemed to be doing it non-stop, like it was an escape, but an escape from what.

Another thing he was sure was troubling the Captain, was the issue of his long lost friend, Bucky Barnes. He himself didn't know much about the man himself, never really thought it appropriate to look into it, but he was sure the two had some bond for them to still hold on to each other after all this time. For Steve to have been physically and mentally scarred after DC.

The second to arrive was Wanda. She lived in the compound as a tear round resident, that was because she was training to become a new Avenger, Steve was helping her. He'd gotten to know her, and seeing her powers stroke a little too close to home, so he kept his distance, set up limits between them. They were friends—gods forbid, but they weren't best buddies.

He surely didn't hold her affections like Steve did.

Sam was the same case, as was Vision. Who both came in respectively.

Natasha next, coming in with a grumpy Clint.

Then Tony. "Meeting at this hours is illegal from tomorrow," was all he said as greeting to them. "Seriously Jackson, why the late hour call?"

"There was an explosion earlier, at the steakhouse," he said, knowing they all probably already knew. He just needed the right stepping stones with which to start. He didn't need to go into details but he needed to _tell_ them. To alert them of what he thought was coming.

"I believe we are all aware," Vision said, a quick thought passed through his head, that Vision was spending too much time with Tony for it to be healthy.

It was hard for him to say, he didn't know how to say it. Good fact that they were all sitting down in fact, around a rectangular table, one they always used for meetings of this degree. "Something _is_ happening," he said bluntly. "Bad. And I need to know that whatever it is, I can _count_ on you. If not I need to know, because then I'll take care of it on my own."

Clint had seemed mad at him when he had walked in, now his features softened, not so mad anymore. "Percy _this_ , we're family," he said. "If something happens to one of us, we're all in it. _Together,_ right?" He was taking it from Steve, when he'd said something very similar during Ultron, just soon after figuring out Ultron was actually a thing.

There was no one disagreeing, Steve looked pleased with himself as Clint had suited him. A sly smile on his handsome face.

"If this is what I think it is," he continued. "It's not Loki. It's not Ultron or Hydra. This is worse."

Tony was moving form side to side with his chair. Rocking back and forth. It was distracting Percy, and Tony knew it was distracting, because he knew he picked up quickly on those things due to his ADHD. He liked to be annoying like that. "How bad we talking about?"

He took a shaky breath, then brought out the silver bracelet. He'd placed it within a plastic bag because it stung him. It hurt him and if he could avoid it then he would. The zip-bag was clear anyway. "I think I was the target at the bombing," he said bluntly, sliding the bracelet towards the first person to his right, Clint. "But it wasn't to kill, no this was…a warning."

"Hey, Jackie," Tony said suddenly, stopping the rocking from side to side, clasping his hands and leaning on the smooth surface of the table. "Quit talking in metaphors and just spit it out. What'd you think is going on?"

The others had their _agreeing_ faces on. Okay, well perhaps he hadn't wanted to get straight to it because it hurt him to talk about it. Perhaps the more he delayed the talk, the more it wasn't real. But he was sure it was, he was sure it _was_ happening. Fourteen years living a nightmare, thinking it ended for three and now realizing it never had. He was still in the nightmare.

It would never end.

"The gods weren't the ones that made me immortal," he told them. Eyebrows rose, no one spoke. Clint and Natasha tensed, if only so slightly. He was sure Steve picked it up, but no one else seems on the same line. "There was this primordial god that did. His name—" _He knew he existed_. Might as well give it to them. "His name is _Tartarus_ and he fucked me up pretty badly…I didn't know what he wanted. I still don't. My guess is world domination," he said at the end.

They still seemed confused. He pointed at the bracelet, which Natasha was holding in her hands. "If you look carefully, there's an engraving on the bracelet. It's his symbol of power," he informed them. "I've seen that bracelet before and…my guess is it gives the person wearing it no self conscience about their actions. They just _do_ things. Like, kill themselves, detonate bombs in highly crowded places."

"Who killed themselves?" Tony asked, confused, his eyes thinning.

Percy waved it off. "That's not the point," he told him. "I just need to know whether…"

"You've got us watching your back?" Tony finished for him. "Of course. Family right?"

Hadn't _that_ gone better than he had expected.

Guilt quickly found its way into him, started eating him from the inside out, because he was leaving out so much and they trusted him. Trusted he wasn't asking them to kill themselves for this. That he knew what he was talking about and that they'd help each other out of it like they had in DC, in Sokovia. God he hoped he knew what he was asking, what he was doing.

-.-.-

2 December

-.-.-

Steve was awake early that day, he always was. Once a soldier, always a soldier. Three years out of the ice weren't enough to break him out of the habit he had picked up during the war. The lenses and reflexes that had improved during those long months in Germany. He remembered the sunrises back then, and was happy to now be able to see them through a window instead, in a warm place he could sometimes find himself calling home.

He'd go running in a while, not yet, for now watching television was entertaining enough and not yet a break from his routine. Not for at least another hour. He flicked through the channels, nothing at the hour was ever that entertaining, but if he could find the right documentary he might get in a good and long seating. He hoped he would.

It was five o'clock when he heard heavy clattering and some _one_ falling to the floor with a heavy thud. He shared the wing with two others, and he had the big fear it had been Percy, and if not him then Sam. He stood up, maybe he'd hurt himself, he needed to check it out right. See if he was okay.

The more he approached the dorm, the more his ears heard what was really going on behind that door. He heard groans as the thumping continued, followed by heavy breaths, uneven and erratic. He knocked on the door, when no one answered to it on the third time, he said 'to hell with privacy' and slowly opened the door. He might be hurting.

He was surprised by what he saw, although he couldn't say he didn't suspect it at all. The room was a mess, things were broken everywhere. His bed's base was split down the middle, the drawer next to the bed was scarcely standing on its own, the lamp on top of it completely shattered next to it on the floor. The hinges were off on the wardrobe. There were holes in the wall, and his left hand's knuckles were bleeding.

He sat with his back against the frame of the bed. His hand in his hair, wet from sweat. His whole body was wet with sweat and he was shaking, slightly. Wearing a white undershirt, Steve could see where skin met metal at the right elbow, always a little fascinated by how that worked, and grossed by the scar tissue around it. Now, like many times before, he could also see the thin scars on his arms, healed over time, but not forgotten.

Slowly Percy raised his head and looked at him, his eyes were red, his cheeks were tearstained, his whole face wet with sweat, his hair sticking to the sides of it. He looked ashamed but at the same time he looked scared and—Steve had never seen him look _scared_ , less so in this condition. Something was seriously wrong and there were too many questions in his head.

He opted into speaking in a soft and smoothing voice, "I heard some noises, thought to come check if you were okay?" It was a question as well. An offer for Percy to tell him how he was feeling, if he needed any help, with anything.

He didn't respond immediately. "I had a nightmare," he explained, color returning to his face as he started talking. "It brought back _things_ that I thought I buried a long time ago."

Steve leaned on the doorframe, he knew what space was. He looked around the room, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I'm guessing it was one of those bad ones?"

Percy nodded, but didn't add anything to that. Not for a solid minute. Steve knew, if he wanted him to be gone, Percy would just tell him so, because he knew that he wouldn't take offense from it, and would leave without pushing. "It wasn't meant to happen," he said after a while. "None of this was meant to happen." He was mumbling now. "He'll come for me," he muttered. "He said he was going to come for me, now I know what he meant." He dropped his face back into his hands.

Steve didn't think about what he was saying, instead approached him and luckily for him, Percy didn't react badly to it, or jump. No, he remained with his head in his hands. He crouched next to Percy, feeling his muscles —cold from being still so long— stretch as he did so. He gently grabbed Percy's left hand. Blood crusting it. "You could have hurt yourself," he said as he examined it and saw nothing too serious had occurred. "Plus, I don't think anyone is going to be too happy about the holes in the wall. Get this checked later, okay. You might need stitches."

Then he stood back on his feet, stretching out his legs and taking a couple of steps back. "It'll be okay, Percy," he said. "If you need to talk, we're all here to listen. And if not us, there're psychologists in the compound, you can talk to them. We all know there's something you're hiding, and that's okay. Just…know that things can get better."

Percy smiled sadly at him. "I think I'm going to leave for a day," he told him. "Get out of here for a while. Back to New York."

"Do you think that will help you?" he asked. Percy nodded at him. "Then I think you should."

-.-

Percy had done exactly that. The moment Steve had left him, he had taken a quick shower, good enough to get all the sweat off, and then dressed in casual clothes, taken a bag and stuffed more clothes inside as well as some toiletries he might need if where he was going was not going to be kind enough to provide them. So he backed essentials, nothing more. It was going to be a short stay anyway. A day, maybe two. Maybe more, he didn't know. He didn't care.

He'd made it all the way to the garage before a voice awoke him further, stopping him where he was. "So are you running away?" Tony asked him casually, sounding like a father who'd just busted their kid going out to meet friends when he was supposed to be in his bed sleeping. "I wanna know where you're going," Tony added, leaning on one of his cars when he didn't answer his question.

"You're not my father," he told him. "Heck you're not even that much older than me."

Tony seemed to get tipped off from that. "Well you look like you're twenty, so until you look older, I'm gonna treat you as you look and as you _act_ , _kid_."

"I'm not in the mood, Tony," Percy told him, turning his back on him, opening the seat of his motorcycle and dumbing his small bag inside. Closing it shut and pulling out the key.

"FRIDAY, lock the doors, thank you," Tony ordered his AI, who controlled the whole compound.

Percy sighed, closed his eyes to keep his anger within and then turned around to look Tony in the eyes. "You're an ass," he said. "What do you want?"

"Just tell me where you're going, when you're coming back, and with who you'll be staying," Tony told him. "I wouldn't want another 'Banner case'. Or to lose another Avenger because you decided to run off. Government would have my head for it."

"My sister's," he said. "I need a vacation."

Tony's lips parted, he was confused, he was astonished. His brows furrowed, scrunched together. "So you tell us this big bad guy is gonna come and the next morning you leave?"

"Look, I'm not a child," Percy said, annoyed. "I know what I'm doing."

"You act like a child," Tony said, his playful attitude long gone. "And I'm thinking that this thing of this primordial rising is getting to your head. Scratch that, it's _already_ gotten to your head, Cap called me after he left your room, told me about the _holes int he wall_. And, knowing you, you'll get yourself into trouble before you even reach your sister's apartment. Trouble finds you everywhere you go, and since we can never be sure with you, I want a day. A day in which I know that we have to start searching if you don't come back."

Percy glared at him. Of course Steve had told him what was happening. Of course as soon as he'd seen how bad the situation had gotten he had alerted at least another memeber of the team. One who had grown fond of him in many ways, one who had started acting like a father figure even though he hadn't needed it. "Fine," he relented. "I'll be back by tomorrow night, I'll call if I stay longer."

Tony grabbed something from his pocket, then threw it in his mouth. "Unlock the doors, FRIDAY."

Percy found himself nodding at the billionaire, before pulling off his Yankees cap and placing it whiting his leather jacket. He swung on top of the bike, grabbed his helmet and pulled it on. Then it was just the sound of engine as he pulled out of the garage and headed for New York.

 **XD XD XD**

 **So yeah...**

 **Dearly hope you enjoyed, and if ya did, leave a review, follow this story and even favourite it or am I going too far?**

 **Just do whatever suits you.**

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 **Follow this.**

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 **Hunter**


	4. Carrying Plans

**Hello there, here I am back again with it.**

 **This is how it always starts when I wrote something new, I update frequently and then as the time goes by, it gets slower and slower, or something like that anyway.**

 **A big thank you to those who followed the story, favorited it, and left a review, even though I do think we could do a little more for the reviews... don'tcha think so?**

 **So anyways, enjoy... (Rewritten 1st June 2018)**

 **.**

 _Previously:_

 _"Look, I'm not a child," Percy said, annoyed. "I know what I'm doing."_

 _"You act like a child," Tony said, his playful attitude long gone. "And I'm thinking that this thing of this primordial rising is getting to your head. Scratch that, it's already gotten to your head, Cap called me after he left your room, told me about the holes int he wall. And, knowing you, you'll get yourself into trouble before you even reach your sister's apartment. Trouble finds you everywhere you go, and since we can never be sure with you, I want a day. A day in which I know that we have to start searching if you don't come back."_

 _Percy glared at him. Of course Steve had told him what was happening. Of course as soon as he'd seen how bad the situation had gotten he had alerted at least another memeber of the team. One who had grown fond of him in many ways, one who had started acting like a father figure even though he hadn't needed it. "Fine," he relented. "I'll be back by tomorrow night, I'll call if I stay longer."_

 _Tony grabbed something from his pocket, then threw it in his mouth. "Unlock the doors, FRIDAY."_

 _Percy found himself nodding at the billionaire, before pulling off his Yankees cap and placing it whiting his leather jacket. He swung on top of the bike, grabbed his helmet and pulled it on. Then it was just the sound of engine as he pulled out of the garage and headed for New York._

.

 **X-X-Gerendi Consilia-X-X**

( _Carrying Plans_ )

He rode through the quiet early morning, first to the city and then around the city, which —even so early— was already starting to be pretty lively, soon enough it'd be packed with men and women going to work. It was still very early, and he dreaded it slightly the moment he'd ring the bell and his sister woke up to find him at her doorstep. Not that it hadn't happened before, its just… He parked his bike at the base of the apartment complex, next to other bikes that were just as nice as his own. Then mad his way up the budding through the elevator. Rang the bell, and tightened his grip on the bag swung over his shoulders.

The door opened up to reveal her sister, a woman in late teens, dresses in a cameo and sweatpants. His lips tugged at the sides just at seeing his sister after a couple of weeks, and for a moment he forgot about the what had happened the night before, just for a small moment. Before he took in her ask brown hair which really complimented her soft blue eyes. He tried —and failed— to ignore the pang of pain he felt at his heart at seeing the similarity between her and his mother. Even after four years he couldn't be over it. He'd never be over it.

"Hi," he said softly, a sad smile on his lips.

She chuckled darkly. "Wow," she said sarcastically. "Do you _know_ what time this is?"

He chuckled as well, his cybernetic arm going up to scratch the back of his head. "Yeah," he said. "And about that, I am sorry."

She yawned, clearly showing him that she didn't care about his excuses or apologies. She wouldn't have them from him. She turned her back to him and walked into her apartment, waving a hand indicating to him to come in. He did. "Don't mention it," she said as he closed the door behind himself, hearing the click and then turning the knob to lock it properly. "But _why_?"

He followed her into the living room, set his bag down gently. "Needed some time off," he explained to her. "It's just for tonight, promise."

She dropped herself into one of the single couches, sinking into it. "You can stay all you want," she told him. He too sat down on one of the couches —she looked comfortable and he was tired— leaning on the armrest for support. God was he tired. "Just as long you don't get in between my plans for tonight, then I'm good."

His eyelids were drooping. "Date?"

She blushed slightly, but nodded her head. He didn't joke about it, he didn't make fun of her, instead, his eyes flashed for a moment, and she recognized the uncertainty, the mistrust, the wonder. She seemed to know exactly what to tell him to make him feel better. "He's not a demigod. Completely mortal. I checked in every way I know how."

Of course there would have been a problem if the kid came over and saw him there, knowing who he was. So, good for him that he was just a mortal. A mortal who had apparently grown affection in Estelle, his sister. "Good," he said, saying just what he'd been thinking. "Wouldn't want all this time I've thwarted death, just to be caught over something like my sister's boyfriend. But you know it'd be okay with me, right? If you wanted to date a demigod, don't not do it on my account. It's your life, you do what you want with it."

She knew more than any of the Avengers, about him, about his life and the mythological world. Heck she had been _there_ for him once those fourteen years in hell had been. She had been there for him in the past three years, which was more than he could have hoped for. She'd been on a field trip when his parents had been murdered, and after coming back she had gone off to live with some relative of Paul's. She had moved to California for that.

He'd gotten into contact with her, risking everything, but he needed her. He wanted to be there for her even though she might not want him. He had taken a huge risk in revealing to her that he was alive, but he had thought her knowing was worth the risk. They still had each other. In fact, after she had known of his _survival_ , she had taken it as a motive to get her own place —which he helped rent— back in New York, so they could be closer to one another.

He loved her more for that.

"So um," she said slowly, bringing him back to reality. "Ming cooking for tonight?"

He looked at her, perhaps too long without answering for it to be normal. He didn't know, he didn't care. He was tired. "No," he told. "Whatever you need."

She grinned, then picked herself up from the lone couch and walked over to him, she sat down next to him, then wrapped her arms around his torso, and leaned down on him. "Damn, I missed you," she said as then unwrapped her arms and simply laid on him. He wrapped an arm around her chest, holding her close. One day he might not be able to.

"Hey, mind if I crash for a couple of hours," he asked her softly, his arm still tight around her. "Try to get in some rest before your boyfriend comes."

"I'm not moving," she told him, snuggling closer to him.

He closed his eyes, moving so his back didn't ache as much. "Not saying…you…have…" he muttered as he slowly fell into the comfortable abyss of unconsciousness.

-.-

She sat on the beach, staring at the sea longingly. Rocketing a three year old back and forth whilst he slept, his face slumped on her shoulder. He was everything that was left for her to care about. His eyes were what she found most loving but at the same time most sad. They were the color of the sea, just like _his_ had been. Once. The hair on the other hand, they were hers, blonde and curly, never to be tamed into a position they both appreciated.

She had grown distant from about everyone in the camp. She was still a solid leader, her word was still taken into account and they listened to her, but her friendships weren't there as much as they had been before. No, things had changed in the past four years, and not for the best, in all the aspects. They didn't believe her, they didn't take her side, she couldn't help but get distant.

She felt someone sitting down next to her, shifting the sand as they did, but she didn't care —couldn't bring herself to care— who it was. No one in the entire camp didn't know her, didn't believe her when she told them that she had leads on where Percy was. They didn't believe her when she had shared with them the doubt of his death in the explosion four years prior. They all thought she was crazy.

She didn't give up. She took the insults, the comments she'd get from people she had once thought were her friends and she continued her search. Sure she was alone, searching for one person in seven billion, but she couldn't —she wouldn't— give up. She would die in a ravine alone before she let her son grow up without his father.

It had gone to shit very quickly.

She had changed as much as he had during their shared time together in the hell they went through. Perhaps she didn't sustain the same types of physical scars as he did, but hers was much more psychological, and she was sure stuff had been done to her that he could only imagine. That she had been violated where he hadn't. She wasn't missing an arm like he had been, but she had many scars to account for those years.

When she had found herself in the throne room on Olympus, barely months after getting out, she had been too confused to understand what was going on and when they started talking…the shock had settled right in. When he had looked at her, his eyes begging for her to defend him, to speak up for him, her voice had stopped working, her lips had sawed themselves shut. She was in shock. She'd been in pure and terrified shock at the prospect of a life without him. His eyes had soon turned to betrayal, then angry. Her heart had broken right then.

Into a million tiny pieces which were still trying to find their way back to each other.

When the gods had said what was going to happen next, his fate, she hadn't wanted to believe it. She knew then like she had known hours before that she had been pregnant and…she felt so sick. Like she was about to vomit, like she was about to _die_. The only thing she had managed to do then had been to _run away_. To turn her back and bolt. Because she had felt so sick, so terrified…

There wasn't a single moment in her life, which she regretter more than that. Running away from him, knowing it might as well been the last time she saw him. She'd run away and she had gotten off Olympus too. Down the building and then down onto the streets of New York. Hailed a taxi and started on her journey back to camp. Tears wouldn't even form in her eyes. She was in pure and terrified shock. She had watched from the window of the taxi as dark grey clouds had gathered at the top of the Empire State Building, as lightning struck down. Something tiny tumbled down.

She locked herself away after that, bought her own home in New Athens because there was nowhere else she could go. Nowhere she had the desire of going to, because she had been _lost_ without him. Everything that had ever signified home, had been him, and now he was gone. She didn't talk to anyone for months, until the baby had to come, then he'd been born, and relief, guilt and grief had swept over her when she had seen his eyes.

Then the news finally arrived, finally managed to reach her ears, 'Artemis' hunters, they caught him'. 'His body is nothing but cinders now'. 'Zeus struck him down'.

Nico had been the first person she had turned to, asking whether he had managed Elysium. She was sorely disappointed when he told her that his father had denied him —and everyone else in the universe— access to talk or to even see him. She had wept, holding her baby close to her. She had wept and sulked in grief for months, locking the doors to her home and not allowing anyone in. Somehow the baby survived, managed to survive, and that sparked the idea in her that Percy had too.

He had survived and Hades was a weird god, and it would be totally possible that he was protecting Percy, that he was keeping a secret and not telling anyone that Percy had never reached the gates of the underworld. Never died.

It had sounded stupid to her own mind, but slowly, she became more and more obsessed with finding out the truth. She had requested an audience with the god, and after that, she had started searching for him nonstop. She had followed every single lead she had gotten of him, following the whispers of the of Percy Jackson. It didn't break her spirit, her resilience, when every lead resulted into a dead end. She kept searching.

Even though she knew better than anyone that he wouldn't ever want to see her. She still had to find him. To know that he was alive, that he was alright. That he was moving on from what had happened —that he _had_ moved on already. To know that he was happy, that he was doing what _he_ wanted to, that he was finally _free_.

"Annabeth," the hunter's voice broke through the surface of her thoughts. "Look, I'm sorry," she said, sounding sorry, but she couldn't accept it. "I've said this so many times, yet you won't talk to me. You won't listen to me—heck you won't even _look_ at me."

She ignored the voice of someone who, a long time ago, used to be her best friend, her sister, the one person who had given her first home. Showed what it was like to fit in, to not be the weird girl everyone looked at weirdly. "Just leave," she told her. Stroking her hand on her son'd head.

But the hunter was stubborn. A trait that seemed to run in the family. She crossed her legs, and she too looked out to sea. "No," she said. "I won't go, until you tell me what your lead is." Annabeth didn't respond. "Look, I regret helping them hunt him. I _do_ , but what could I have said? _Sorry, you can hunt him down without me, I'm not doing this_."

Annabeth didn't nod, she didn't let this get the better of her. "That's exactly what you should have said," she said with a low voice. "He'd have done the same for you. You he would have."

"But I'm not as good as him," the hunter said, her voice breaking. "I'm not as _perfect_ as him, and I can't do anything about what happened. I can only try to amend for what I've done."

"Just leave it," Annabeth told her, gently standing up, holding her son'd head close to her shoulder, making sure he wouldn't wake up.

"Annabeth—"

"Leave it," she snapped.

-.-

Annabeth read the article in the newspaper she was holding for the fifteenth time that day:

" _Explosion caused by a teenager, alerts all police and investigation departments as to the cause and reason why. Female teenager is said to have been holding a detonator in her hands and not hesitating once she entered the Steakhouse, to set the bomb off. Witness had this to say when questioned about the case: "I saw her coming in. I thought she was just another customer. But she seemed off, I saw her look at this man. A scar ran down his right eye, and then this same man yelled for everyone to take cover. I listened to him and the next thing I know, is I'm flying through the air."_

 _The girl was described as being in her mid teens. Blonde haired and blue eyes. Identity yet to be identified, police departments are still waiting for someone to file a missing person report to claim her. She herself was a victim of the bombing, but not because of the explosion, but rather, a sharp shrapnel of glass lodging in her side, death caused by severe blood loss._

 _As the FBI continued to investigate on the scene, new evidence has come up that someone in the midst of the chaos had been with the young victim in her last moments before death took her in its cold grip. "It was really foggy," our witness reported. "But I saw that man (referring to previous mention), he rushed over to her. I heard them talking, but it was lost in the sound of confusion and sirens blazing. He left before anyone could ask him questions."_

 _Further investigation show a missing bracelet due to the laceration around her skin. Whoever this mysterious man is, he might be a possible suspect as to the reasons why the bombing occurred. Witnesses outside the restaurant stated that they_ did _see a man sneaking out of the house, hail a taxi and move away from the zone. The FBI are currently conducting another investigation as to gather as much of a visual idea of who this man is so that he can be tracked down and brought to answer._

 _Latest discoveries regarding this mysterious have left the public speechless because: could this be another terrorist attack? And what exactly is the play going on here?_

 _As for now, all that is known about the mysterious man is that he stands at six feet one, his hair is black and tousled. One of his arms is covered to the fingertips which easily suggests he be hiding a mark of some terroristic group of the likes of…_ '

The rest was irrelevant.

Everything else though… _It could be anyone_ , her bairn told her. _It's him_ , her heart said in contrast. Just to upper her spirits, make her feel more confident about herself, she flicked through the newspaper, searching for another article which she had placed within the newspaper she held in her hands. This one was old evidence, the newspaper she held was fresh from the midday.

The article was an old one, something she had since a few months, it read:

' _The Swordsman, the Avenger best knowing for his sword fighting skills, is still a mystery to the public eyes. Even though many public stunts, where the mysterious Avenger was seen accompanying the Avengers and saving cities from terrorist attacks, his identity is still a mystery to the whole world. An issue rising, as the American government —amongst other— is close to being unable to tolerate such an individual to act as a_ vigilante _without accountability._

 _There are rumors that the rest of the team world wide known as the Avengers know his true identity. That the mask and hood he wears during his multiple world saving quests, is something he wears around the rest of the team, even behind closed doors. Of course, that would be irrational._

 _The Swordsman, this mysterious man, has managed to go the good length of three years serving as an Avenger without letting a single fact about himself slip to the public ears, or the government's. Managing to keep his identity secret, even when not so long ago, all of SHIELD's files were dumped on the net by one assassin: Natasha Romanoff (see more on page 9)._

 _The name 'Swordsman' was chosen by the public after Mr. Anthony Stark (former CEO of Stark Industries now known as Iron Man) publicized an online poll for the public to choose a name to gift the mysterious Avenger with…_ '

Again, the rest was irrelevant, and it was missing from the way she had ripped the page off the actual newspaper, which was from a couple of months ago, just after Sokovia had been blown to kingdom kong by the Avengers themselves. When the Avengers had reached another period in time where they were the top of the news, something that had clearly changed now. It was getting more quiet. And quiet was good.

She'd had this lead for months now, the idea that he had managed to become an Avenger was something that had sounded absurd at first, but it was slowly starting to build in her head. Back in her house at camp —in New Athens— she had much more evidence to rely on that two articles. Plus, she had watched him first hand fighting some rogue monsters in New York. She wasn't sure he had seen her, if he had he hadn't acknowledged her, and she hadn't been a hundred percent sure then, like she wasn't now, that it had been him.

She'd waited in doubt for enough time, though, she had nothing to lose. Worse that could happen he would reject her in a very bad manner, or that it was all a mistake, another dead end. If that was the case she would just need to wipe the memories of those involved with the mist and restart from square one.

 _He wasn't dead_ , she whispered confidently to herself.

She had managed, through a _lot_ of planning —and hacking— to acquire what was the address of the Avenger's compound. Gods above, even if it was a dead end…no regrets on doing so because—damn was it something to gawk at. It was in the middle of nowhere, and she had managed to get there with the help of the mist of course, but damn it was a dreamer's home. With jets flying in and out, agents patrolling the place and—gods were those cars expensive.

She walked confidently right in through the front door, again, she was using the mist to make it look like she wore appropriate clothing, formal attires and all that. The entrance room was enormous, there were paparazzi, and gods were there a lot of agents walking around, men in lab coats walking from side to side. It was like the entrance to a _very_ important facility. She made sure not to look like she was gawking.

One of the desks were empty from people talking to the ladies behind them, she walked up then, bending the mist so that she could look a little older than she actually was. The woman looked up from her computer screen, and asked, "Can I help you?"

She smiled kindly —the lady was so getting in trouble for this. "Actually yes," she said. "I'd like to schedule an appointment with Mr. Stark."

The lady typed and clicked some things on her computer screen. Then she looked back at Annabeth, a sweet smile still on her lips. "Mr. Stark is a very busy man," she told her, looking back at the screen as she worked on it. "I'll check when the earliest time is…"

Annabeth didn't even want to know when the first free slot was. She _knew_ it was going to be in a very long time, she couldn't wait more _months_ for this. She needed an answer to her hope as quickly as possible and if that meant that she'd need to cheat her way into it, then so be it. She looked around herself, making sure on one was looking at her.

"I need to talk to him today," she said, as she snapped her fingers, the mist working its job. "You will make so that I talk to him as soon as possible."

The woman's eyes glazed over and she picked up the phone lying next to the computer's desk, and damn did she want to know more about the technology that was around her. "Friday?" the lady called through the phone. "There's a lady here, that really needs to talk to Mr. Stark…It's not like that…She needs an appointment as quickly as possible…Oh, no…she is here regarding Mr. Stark's scholarship program…Today he's not…Oh, okay…" She looked at Annabeth, showing her she was close to ending the conversation. Or that things were going the right direction. "Thank you Friday." She placed the phone back down on the desk, and smiled sweetly at her. "I talked to Mr. Starks AI, Friday, she says she has scheduled an appointment for you tomorrow afternoon, cannot be done."

Thinking quickly about it, she nodded her head, knowing that this might as well be the best deal she could get. "That's okay." Although it meant she came al the way out here for nothing and that she'd then need to come back another time as well as go back now.

Damn was this confusing. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?" the lady told her sweetly.

She smiled, too, the gesture contagious to her. "Yes, I'll see you tomorrow."

-.-

Estelle watched as her brother danced and cooked, multitasking and excelling at both the tasks. He moved from one side of the kitchen to the other, grabbing ingredients, and dancing at the beat of the song he had, softly playing in the background of his cooking. They had decided to have a big round of pasta —cooked his way— for dinner with a second of steak and the dessert consisting of their mother's famous cookie recipe. The water was heating up, and now he was placing the still streaming cookies into a container to be conserved for after the main course of dinner.

He was cleaning up and making the sauce for the past as he also danced to the slow and charismatic beat of the song. He hadn't noticed her, and she had been standing there for a couple of minutes now. She had gone change almost more than half an hour prior, getting ready for the night, and he had lost himself in the meanwhile.

She smiled sadly at him, because when he thought no one was looking he looked quiet sad, he looked depressed. She could see the worry lines on his brow, the fear that lingered at the sides of his eyes. The exhaustion that was so clearly spelled on every inch of his face and his posture. When he thought no one was looking he showed what he never showed otherwise.

"You look like a monkey," she joked, trying to erase the bad things from his face. He was actually dancing quite well, better than she could manage anyway.

He didn't stop dancing, just set down the pan he had in his hands and turned to look at her. Immediately she saw the difference, the worry lines gone, the fear in his eyes like it had never been there. He stepped towards her, grabbed her hand and spun her around. "Don't you look like total fire," he commented as he stepped back from her and looked her from head to toe.

Blood was quick to make its way into her cheeks, forcing her to blush. She was used to these comments, especially from him and her boyfriend, but it still made her conscious of herself when it was said. She was wearing a simple skirt with a button up white shirt. Her hair braided down the side of her neck.

"And without even trying," he added as he turned around, stepping with the beat of the song, to continue his cooking. "Which is much more than I ever managed. You're off to a good start, sis."

She would have begged to disagree. She had seen the pictures of how he had looked way back when and, had they not been related by mother, she might have developed a crush on him. Luckily enough, that wasn't the case, and she could instead brag that her brother was a fine piece of a man. Who was dancing while cooking for her _date_. She was about to tell him this much, when the doorbell rung.

Percy turned to look at her, a smirk on his face. He walked to turn off the music. "Well, go take it," he urged her, nudging his head towards the door.

She rolled her eyes at him, and stuck out her tongue just for good measure, before going to take it. She straitened out her skirt as she walked down the hall of her apartment. Then opens the door to him, Thomas Walker. He stood at five nine, with closely cropped blonde dirty blonde and green eyes like the grass in fields. Wearing tight jeans and a blue button up shirt which he left open at the over, and over that, a black leather jacket. In his hands a bouquet of lilies.

He grinned at her madly as he stretched his hand out for her to take the lilies. She did take them, and as they closed up, she delivered a quick peck on his lips, then pulled him in the apartment before closing the door behind them. "You're looking good, Tom."

"You look beautiful," he commented in return, which had her blushing all over again. They smiled fondly to one another before he took off his jacket and she hung it up on the rack next to the door. "So your brother's home?"

She nodded, a big smile on her face. "Yeah," she said. "Just for tonight. Hope you don't mind it."

He shook his head without hesitation, placing his arm around her waist. He snuggled close to her neck, making her giggle slightly. "Don't worry," he said as he landed a soft kiss on her neck. "I mean about time I meet him, right."

"Right," another voice said form down the hall. Estelle looked up to see her brother standing there, the dirty apron still around him. He was wearing good clothes underneath, but he was still cooking it appeared. He stood there, smiling at them both. "And about time I met _you_ ," he said as he walked towards them and extended his arm.

Estelle watched carefully her boyfriend, just to catch his reaction —his opinion— on her brother, on the arm that was so clearly replaced by a piece of metal. First there was fear in Thomas' face, then it turned to surprise and then to awe. He liked her brother, and as his eyes set on the prosthetic hand Percy kept out so openly, his eyes sparked with confusion and something more, something she couldn't recognize in the darkness of the corridor.

Thomas took the extended hand. "Thomas Walker," he said. There had been hesitation for him to take the cybernetic arm Percy had offered. She had come to call it his first test, the reaction they had to his arm, then if they passed that —which Thomas seemed to have passed— they could become best bros and never fear each other.

"Percy," he introduced himself in return.

-.-

Thomas was —to put it simply— intimidate by her brother, Percy. Sure from the little minute they had shared a handshake he seemed like a real nice and proper man, but its just…the aesthetics gave off a bad vibe which he couldn't find himself ignoring. Like he was dangerous and he should be afraid of what he was capable of. Like he should have run out the door and away from the building the moment he had seen him.

If the nasty scar across his face wasn't the first hint that the man was to some extent _dangerous_ , then the cybernetic arm was for sure. Hell, he had grabbed it, shook it and he didn't think he'd been through a more fearsome event in all of his life. He felt like he was being tested by him, like his very breathing was a test in the eyes of the brother, and god was he going to try to pass them all.

Percy had excused himself, not that Thomas was complaining because that meant that he could have some more private time with Estelle as the brother continued cooking in the kitchen. They sat down around the table, which was already set neatly, when his first question popped up. "Why are you cooking?"

She grinned, and something inside of him warmed up at seeing that grin. "Because he decided to wake me at six, this morning. I would have sued him for it, but, since he's a _decent_ cook, I thought this was much better."

He frowned at her explanation, grabbing her hand in his, cupping it in his much bigger one. "Six in the morning?" he asked, uncertain about why that would be so. Did the brother work on Saturdays or something? "How come?"

She shrugged, showing that even though she was saying she was annoyed, it didn't really annoy her that much in reality. "It's what he does," she said, brushing it off with a second shrug. "It's his job." There was an underlying meaning to that, which he didn't ask about.

"Doesn't he have his own house?"

She snorted when he asked that. "Of course he does," she told him. "But sometimes he need to get away and he comes here. I don't mind. I barely see him in person. It's usually just a call, and that happens like, once every two weeks."

"Busy job?"

Right then there were footsteps, and, "You can ask me, you know?" He stood behind them, coming in from the kitchen, a big bowl with pasta within it. He set it down on the table in the middle and started serving rations, dividing the food evenly between them. Thomas liked what he saw and quickly enough, he was waiting for everyone to sit down so he could eat.

As he took his first bite, he was surprised by what he was eating. "Damn," he said in awe. "This is amazing."

"Called it," Estelle said as she poured herself some water. She took a big sip with a clear smile through the glass.

Her brother wiped his mouth. "Why are you drinking water?" he asked her. "You're legally an adult. It's Saturday. Drink some wine."

"I'm not a drunk, Perce," she said, not noticing the flinch she received from her brother, Thomas however saw it, maybe because his eyes were fixated on the color of his, but he could only wonder why he had that reaction. When he blinked, he felt like he had imagined it.

"I'm not a drunk either," Percy told his sister. "But you know, it's an occasion. You should go beyond water sometimes."

She chuckled. "Not today."

Then Thomas felt himself be subjected from the gaze of the enigma that was his girlfriend's brother, and god was his stare intimidating, not that he was glaring but…it was something. "Do you want some?" he was asked.

He thought of it as a test, say no and make a good impression on the brother who looks like a master assassin, say yes and make less of a good impression. The night was tense, the atmosphere was tense, perhaps a bit of liquor in his head would do him no bad in the current situation. So, "Why not?" he said as he extended his own glass towards the brother, who smiled as poured him just the right amount.

"You're legal, right?" he asked him after he was done, setting the bottle down and taking a sip from his own glass.

Thomas nodded his head yes. "August first."

Percy looked at him again, Thomas cringed at how uneasy he felt at himself —internally of course. The brother smiled and then went back to his dinner. "So you were asking about my job?" he said. "Well, I'm sure you know about the Avengers?"

Thomas was _immediately_ intrigued. "Do you work with them?" he asked bluntly, quickly apologizing for it. God that had not been his best moment,

"I work in the compound," he told him. "Not exactly _for_ them, I work _with_ them."

"Have you met the Avengers?"

Percy nodded slightly, it was clear he didn't like the conversation. "I have, yes."

The rest of the night went by like that, having small talk where Percy asked Thomas about his school life, what he wanted to become when he was older —a lawyer he had said— and then Thomas asking Percy questions. And on both sides Estelle would chirp in, adding her own comment to it all. It went by quickly. .

 **Dun dun dun. Hehe.**

 **So how was that? I'm trying my best, I really am and since I'm able to deliver 4,000 words of a chapter to you, I'm sure you can leave a small review telling me wether you liked it or not.**

 **Please.**

 **And, do tell me if something's not right...**

 **Oh and, here's a preview for the next chapter;**

 **.**

 _Her heart rate quickened, if this was right, she was so close to seeing him again, so close to seeing those sea green eyes she had learned to love and yearn for._

 _She stood up like a model would and approached him. Immediately she noticed how stressed and in a bad mood he was in, she noticed the creases in his forehead and the glare he was sending the floor._

 _She stuck her hand out towards him. "I'm Annabeth Chase," she introduced herself._

 _He frowned at her and didn't even bother with shaking her hand. "You're Annabeth Chase?" he asked her and there was a meaner tone to it. "I'm sorry– are you actually part of that scholarship thing– I'm sorry-no I'm not, but I'm going to have to kick you out before you cause some serious trouble."_

 **.**

 **So yeah...**

 **Leave a review please and in case your wondering, XD**

 **Hunter**


	5. Trying to Make Amends

**AN thank you ppl, very much for putting up with me and helping me through this XD. In the end I just went over to the laptop to my dismay O.o**

 **I won't keep ya waiting, not anymore, here goes nothing. (Rewritten 3 June 2018 — this is so different damn)**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _"I need to talk to him today," she said, as she snapped her fingers, the mist working its job. "You will make so that I talk to him as soon as possible."_

 _The woman's eyes glazed over and she picked up the phone lying next to the computer's desk, and damn did she want to know more about the technology that was around her. "Friday?" the lady called through the phone. "There's a lady here, that really needs to talk to Mr. Stark…It's not like that…She needs an appointment as quickly as possible…Oh, no…she is here regarding Mr. Stark's scholarship program…Today he's not…Oh, okay…" She looked at Annabeth, showing her she was close to ending the conversation. Or that things were going the right direction. "Thank you Friday." She placed the phone back down on the desk, and smiled sweetly at her. "I talked to Mr. Starks AI, Friday, she says she has scheduled an appointment for you tomorrow afternoon, cannot be done."_

 _Thinking quickly about it, she nodded her head, knowing that this might as well be the best deal she could get. "That's okay." Although it meant she came al the way out here for nothing and that she'd then need to come back another time as well as go back now._

 _Damn was this confusing. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?" the lady told her sweetly._

 _She smiled, too, the gesture contagious to her. "Yes, I'll see you tomorrow."_

 _._

 **X-X-Ternis Baratri Incendiis Temptatis-X-X**

( _Trying to Make Amends_ )

-.-.-

3rd December

-.-.-

When he awoke the next day, he knew he'd need to go back to the compound. He wasn't happy about it, but there was a job that needed doing and so he had to go back. He laid on his bed just staring at the ceiling of his room, thinking about how messed up his life was turning out to be. Just one person coming back into his life could mean a consecutive reaction of events, each worse.

He thought about the bracelet that he'd taken from Lacy. He brought it out of his pocket examining it. Looking at it through the plastic bag. Then decided to take it out of the plastic bag and touch it. Immediately his skin flared up, stinging, not unbearably but…it was uncomfortable. He looked at it carefully, bringing it close to his eyes and then turning it around in his hand.

He'd had time to think about it, about what it was that was causing his skin to react so, when it hadn't seemed to have any effect of the similar with the girl. It was targeted at him, but he wasn't allergic to metal, not that he was aware anyway. He had an idea of what it was, untested, but…

He moved off his bed, grabbed the bottle of water he kept next to it and the cup before sitting back down on the bed. Placing the bracelet next to him as he poured some of the water inside the cup. He really hoped —deep within— that this wasn't what he thought it was. If it was…god he didn't want to think about what it could mean. He didn't want to see _that_ particular deity again.

His hand shook slightly, a tremor he guessed, as he picked the bracelet up and brought it to the rim of the cup. _Please don't be—Please don't be—Please don't be_. He chanted in his head. Everything but that. He dropped the silver bracelet in the water and he felt his stomach tightening on itself as bubbles immediately turned up, coming from where the metal met contact with the water. He set the cup down back on his nightstand and rubbed at his face.

God was he in a mess.

He _needed_ to tell the rest of the team, needed to let them know, because they had to know what they were facing, and he hadn't been the clearest back the nights before. He stood from the bed, directing himself to the bathroom with the cup with _poisoned water_ inside it. Locked the door while he was at it. Looked himself in the mirror.

He emptied the cup in the sink, making sure to then rinse the sink so no one would accidentally touch the water and then it'd end in their eyes or mouth, _that_ would turn out in panic. He took a small and quick shower. He'd pack his bags and then make his way back to the compound after lunch, that sounded like a plan to him.

-.-

She got excited,.

She made her way back towards the compound towards seven, eager to find out the answer to this lead she'd secretly had for months. One of the only leads in which she actually believed in and that she had prosecuted for this reason that was alien even to her. She got there excited, and she knew full well, she might be leaving with a concave in her heart.

She took a _very_ deep breath before entering the complex building that served as the Avengers' headquarters, and after showing a badge she'd gotten from the lady at the desk the day before, she was allowed through the doors and into a waiting room. The lady from the day before directing her there, telling her that someone would come pick her up and bring her to Mr. Stark.

I was ten very boring minutes, before one of the agents that was passing actually stopped to her and told her to follow him. Ten minutes in which she had managed to count at least twenty-three agents using the elevator, five different businessmen coming in with seven going out, twenty taken calls from the receptionists and well, more than fifty agents coming in and out.

Her heart rate quickened, if this was right, she was so _close_ to seeing him again. Being able to be in the same room as her, feel his presence, lay eyes on his very own sea green which she had learned to love, and now yearned for like she needed oxygen to breathe. She _missed_ him, and if this was right her hunt was over, she could stop missing him, hoping he was alive.

She stood, her smart pants lowering themselves as she did, falling behind her calves to cover them up. She straightened out her white velvet jacket, then followed the agent, her heels softly clanking against the solid pavement. She had decided to actually dress formally for today, she feared that perhaps she'd lose the grip on the mist and end up looking like she'd just been to the gym instead. So it was manual.

The agent led her through, quite the amount of ground. The compound was big, bigger than she had imagined or than it had looked from outside and the blueprints she had managed to get her hands on. It was enormous and spacious, which she found fitting for a group of people such as the Avengers. After all, they had all the money for this as they wanted.

Finally after a good five minutes of walking, taking stairs and elevators, the agent stopped in front of a wooden door and held it open for her. She guessed she'd go, on her own from there. He nodded her along and once she was over the threshold of the door, it closed behind her. Her heart beat just a little faster as she looked around herself.

Then she heard the buzzing of machinery, and softly and cautiously walked towards it, holding her purse to her stomach. A purse which contained a good amount of lethal object which would have never passed through security had she not used the mist to trick the detectors. _That_ was not the point.

She was sure Mr. Stark was expecting her, even though when she saw him, he was hunched over a table, a screwdriver in his hands as he seemed to be disassembling an engine of some sort. He moved the screwdriver in his mouth as he tinkered with the junk with his own hands. She noticed his stress level, the creases in his forehead as he worked, the lines around his eyes as well as the bags beneath them. He was in a mood.

Then he set down the screwdriver loudly and looked at her. More like, _checked her out_. His eyes looked from top to bottom, lasting a couple more seconds on her midsection before going back to her face. "Wow," he said, completely sarcastic, as he pushed himself off his chair. "When I heard you were coming, I didn't imagine you to be so…" He pointed around in circles as he checked her out again. "Well so…"

She smiled sweetly before setting her stuff down on the desk. "If you're done," she said bluntly. "I'm Annabeth Chase," she told him, stretching her hand for him to take it.

That's the moment she knew her lead was legit. She saw the change in his eyes, from exhaustion to confusion, to understanding and the making of a decision. He _knew_ who she was, he knew and in fact he frowned at her as he ignored the hand. "I heard about you, you know?" he said as he turned his back on her and went back to working on the engine. "I'm afraid I'm gonna have to call security. Have you escorted off the premises."

"No," she said just as he was about to say something, perhaps call his AI and alert it to call someone to bring her out. She snapped her fingers, maintaining eye contact with the genius and said. "You _don't_ want to kick me out." She watched, guilt tripping her as his glazed over slightly. "On the other hand, you want to bring me to meet the rest of the Avengers. Namely 'The Swordsman' and you won't alert him of my presence."

His mind was strong, that much she could tell because it took a moment before he answered. Almost like he'd had a mental battle with himself, but at the end he said, "Yes, so why don't you come with me. I'll give you a tour."

He grabbed a nearby lying towel, cleaning his hands from he grime of the engine and then walked past her, waving for her to follow him. "He's not in, right now," he told her. "But, I got a text a while ago that he was on his way back." Then a pause as they walked out of the laboratory. "So what are you here, exactly?"

They called for an elevator. "I need to see him," she told him, giving him a small answer when that was only the surface. Then she just needed to ask, "Is he happy?"

Tony took a moment to answer the question, enough that they were in the elevator by the time he had the answer. "He's getting better," he said at last. "Building himself a life. Getting over whatever, you two went through."

"He didn't say?"

He shook his head at her question. "No, I don't think he trusts all of us," he told her truthfully. "Sure he does out there, but when it comes to personal stuff…he's as tight as a belt. And after today I don't think he'll trust me any more than usual. I'll be surprised if he'll even look at me. After all I _am_ bringing his ex-girlfriend, which he doesn't want to see, to see him. Figures."

She swallowed down what she had wanted to say to that, instead looked at the genius and asked, "Are you okay, Mr. Stark?"

He shrugged his shoulders, a clear answer that _no, he isn't okay_ , but she didn't know what to do or say, and if he didn't say anything, it probably meant —with good reason— that he didn't want to talk about it with her, since they'd just met and she was in his head forcing him to do something he didn't want to. Was that a crime?

It was a quiet 'tour' from there. He didn't want to talk to her, and she didn't want to ask things he might be uncomfortable answering. So they both stayed quiet, for the sake of the other because hell was she going to need all the energy she had for when she finally saw him.

It still hadn't wrapped around her head that he was _alive_. That for more than three years he had been an Avenger, and right under their noses. They had all talked about them, multiple times, she had thought about him being the Swordsman, but no one else had ever mentioned it and…god she had been right. He was _alive_. He had _survived_.

She didn't fully grasp the concept then, she was sure that if she had, she'd have fainted right then and there.

They finally got to where Tony had wanted to bring them. She was quick to notice the glass panels that acted to separate the room, and still make it look very spacious. The tall windows that let in most of the illuminating light. There were couches around the room, accompanied by small coffee tables and lounging chairs. On one corner of the room, there was a minibar.

Her heart stopped short when she saw _who_ was sitting in one of the lounging chairs, a newspaper in his hand —the one from the day before she noticed— and sipping water from a tall clear glass through a straw. The world seemed to stop when she saw him, when it took her all but two seconds to come to terms with who it was, who exactly was sitting there and was so _oblivious_ to her own presence.

Right then, she lost it. She saw _him_ , she _felt_ him. Even though his powers and scent that of a demigod were all but gone and stripped from him, she _felt_ him. Felt his dominating presence in the room and she went limp. Because finally — _finally_ — after four years of searching and ending up with nothing in her hands— finally she had found him. She finally knew as a fact —because she was seeing it with her very own eyes— that he hadn't died, that he was alive. That he was _free_.

It all happened in the worth of seconds and— she dropped her purse.

Even though he hadn't noticed them at first, or well, had acknowledged the presence of two beings but not look. The noise sure as hell seemed to have intrigued him as he raised his head from the newspaper he was reading —she noted it was the article about the explosion, perhaps it _had_ been him, she was right about that too— and looked in their direction.

The frown on his face disappeared as he saw Tony, and as he saw _her_. It was quickly followed by surprise, the rise of his brow simultaneously. Then it was gone, there was harsh and stern denial in his eyes, there was anger. There was rage and betrayal, all in one but she forced herself to keep the stare, to keep eye-contact because…she had _missed_ those green eyes, however ruined they were now. She had missed seeing his face. She had missed _him_.

She would make this last as long as she could, before his being was ripped from her again.

He looked hurt by her presence, by her being there. He looked away from her. "I don't even know why I'm surprised to see you," he said softly.

"I've been looking for you," she told him quickly, not half as softly as his tone had been.

She saw the rage flash in his eyes, the _discomfort_ at being told this. Apparently Tony —who had been standing beside her— saw it too, because he made a distressed sound. "Imma grab something to drink," he stated out loud, and Annabeth dearly wanted to ask for something herself, this was proving to being much harder than she had initially expected.

"You let her in," Percy asked him, the betrayal was clear in his voice and Annabeth would do anything for that to not be directed towards her. "Seriously, after everything I've told you about her, you let her in. Not only that, and you also brought her _here_ , to _me._ "

She stepped up, just as Tony got to the minibar and opened a cupboard. She could only see super-alcoholic beverages in it. "It isn't his fault," she told him. He was still sitting down, the only difference from before, he'd set the newspaper down as well as the glass of water, on the small table in front of him. His legs were crossed, and his right arm was draped over the backrest of the chair he sat on. "I used the mist on him."

She saw the flash of anger, but he had always been an expert at hiding his feelings after hell, even before, apparently he'd been suicidal and she hadn't noticed. Now he was keeping in what she knew was rage and anger mixed together. "Of course you did," he said as he stood, walked over to Tony, who was well on his way onto his second glass of booze. "Well, I'm afraid you've been looking for someone who's been dead for half a decade now."

"I want to apologize," she told him as he reached the mini bar. Walked over to grab one of the glasses from a shelf that she couldn't see. "I _need_ to apologize. You have to let me explain."

He set the glass down on the counter, as Tony leaned on it, Percy grabbed the bottle of booze, and poured him more than enough of the liquor. Took a gulp, swallowed. Pointed at her with the glass. "I don't _have_ to do anything for you," he told her, sternly enough someone less _her_ would back off. "I don't owe you anything. In fact, if I weren't so _tired_ right now, I'd kick you out myself. I guess I'll just settle with security. F—"

"Don't," she interrupted him, and for some good graciousness, he stopped calling out for the AI that Stark had installed _everywhere_ on the damned compound. " _Please_ ," she added, sounding as desperate as she felt. "I have searched for you for four years— day and night!" she urged when he opened his mouth to speak. "Give me five minutes of your time —privately— and I swear I'll leave after that… _Please_."

He finished the booze in his glass, which meant, he wasn't sober anymore. "I don't want to," he told. "So, please —I'm asking kindly— leave the compound, and never come back." He poured himself more of the booze, she looked at him worriedly, even Tony was looking at him with concern. He took another gulp from the liquor, and she saw him, losing himself to the substance a little more. "Because I don't want to talk to you, listen to you talk to me, feel your presence, or _see_ you. So kindly fuck off."

She had one last card to play, one card which she knew might hurt him, might make him feel worse than he was already feeling. Something that perhaps he hadn't explained to the people in this new life he'd built himself, but she'd play it because she was desperate, and desperate times called for desperate measures. "I know you didn't kill him," she told him, watching as he downed the glass and then set it harshly on the counter. She saw Tony quickly grab it and take it from his sight, along with the booze.

He stopped mid motion of putting away the liquor. "Wait, killed who?" he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

She ignored him, keeping her eyes set on Percy, who's eyes had blurred over and his face looked so emotionless she wondered whether he had even heard her. His eyes though, they were on her, and they seemed to be boring a hole right through her. "So _now_ you believe me?" he said to her, monotone, searching for a sip of the booze that had been in his glass moments before. She had an idea why he was getting drunk, but she didn't _want_ to believe it. That would mean starting to hope for something that at the moment sounded very unlikely. "I'd ask you why you think so, but I don't care." The words hit right hime.

"Please," she said again, the word seemed to be the only thing rooting him to listening to her, because she was _begging_ him to listen to her, to talk to her and she was talking. Even though it was not what she was meant to be talking about, but her reasoning wouldn't make any sense if he didn't see things as they had been for the past four years. "I've always believed you."

"That just proves you're a coward," he told her, and he didn't seem to feel any guilt about what she'd just said. She closed her eyes for a moment, a whisper of, ' _You're the bravest person I know_ ' sounding in her ears, something that had been said with the vey same lips that now called her the opposite. Which led her to think whether he really meant it, or whether it was the booze talking.

The anger.

"You can think me as whatever you want," she told him, trying not to sound as hurt as she was by his words. "But you don't _know_ what happened in the past four years—"

"I don't know what happened in the last _nineteen_ years," he corrected her. "You know…they didn't really give me the chance to _catch up_."

Again, she didn't want to hurt by what he was saying. She ground her teeth and stepped towards the both of them, her hands slamming on the table. "Okay!" she exclaimed. "I am _done_ playing soft and kind girl because you're too damn _prideful_ to accept sincere apologies. That you're such a complete pain in the ass that you can't see what's right in front of you. Now, let me tell you this: I have searched for you for four years, but if you think it's only because I wanted to _see_ you again, then get your head out of your ass, or jump off your damn ego. Because not even your pretty face could keep me on track to find the _likes_ of you."

She was lying. His pretty face had been all she had needed to find motivation on finding him. More so, the prospect of her son needing a father to grow up, not that she was now going to spring that out. No, for that she'd wait until he was _willing_ to listen to reason. Right now, she had something else to tell, that she wouldn't bother didn't she still harbor deep and profound feelings for him. So she spoke again, no mercy in her words.

"We spent fourteen years in hell," she told him. She _had_ to warn him of what was to come. She owed him as much. "Your brother was fourteen, and I've had four damned years to think about this. And if you tried to remember, instead of locking it in the past, then you'd remember how _he_ continuously said how he was going to crush _them_.

He looked confused, but not the type that he'd just been hearing about this. Rather, the type that he knew what she was talking about and thinking ' _How had I not thought of this before_?' Something that somehow connected to something he himself was looking into. Perhaps he already knew what she was saying, perhaps he didn't. It dint matter, she had to warn him.

"He planned _this_ ," she said, and she pointed at them both. "He planned it all. You getting shunned, _killed_ , it's all one big fat plan of his that he's been harboring for almost two decades now." Upon seeing the questioning expression on his face she continued. "The gods have no trust in you, they don't _like_ you. They think you're dead. Which is what _he_ wanted. They wanted you dead, and if they'd managed, you'd also be out of _his_ way. The most powerful demigod —possibly in all of history. If you hadn't committed— The gods could have brought you back if they sorely needed you, they _have_ the power and they _had_ your loyalty. Now they don't, so _when_ he rises, we'll be in a tough spot, because you're not on our side. The loyalty you held for us is gone, you're on your own side—"

"So, why didn't you _say_ this?" he said and she was glad he did because he broke character. The alcohol not only was allowing him to say harsh things to her, but it was forcing him to not be aware of how much control he was letting slip when he was talking. It was aiding her, in getting an idea on what was going through his head at the moment and right now, he seemed desperate. Like he was forcing this wall up, but he was doing so out of spite, because deeply, he _wanted_ to know.

"I tried," she told him, leaving off her meaner tone and turning back to a soft and soothing one. "Believe me, I tried. Zeus threatened to have me end the same way as you. I knew you were alive though, and what good would I be to find you I were dead? So I apologized, and continued my search in silence, and on my own."

Tony set down his glass, heavily, she turned to him, Percy however didn't, he was looking down at his hands. "I call time out," Stark said, sounding sober when it was clear he wasn't. "This is as confusing as this stuff gets, please, say all of that, again, and explain it. Thank you."

She was about to open her mouth, but Percy beat her to it. "I'll explain another day," he said. "I promise," he added when Tony glared at him. Then he looked back at her. "I want to know everything you know about the matter, then after that, you're going to swear to me, that you won't tell a single soul about my being alive and here, and then you're going to leave, and never come back. Okay?"

She couldn't agree to that, not to the last one. She could tell him all he wanted to know about that stuff, and she was willing to swear to him she wouldn't rat him out. She wouldn't have either way, but she couldn't swear to him that she was never going to come back, she couldn't and she wouldn't. "I'm not giving up, Percy," she told him. "Not until you let me talk to you, and you listen to what I need to say."

Luckily for her, he seemed to remember her stubbornness, and seemed to recognize it in the events of the day. He sighed, then looked at Tony and asked something wordlessly, and then Tony nodded his head. He turned back to her, but didn't look at her. "You'll have a place for the night," he told her, if begrudgingly. He tapped his hand on the counter. "You tell me all you know tonight, and then you leave first thing in the morning. And your accommodation will feel like house arrest. Not to leave the suite you're given. Take it or leave now."

She stood her ground. Of course she did, he didn't look surprised, only annoyed by her presence to _close_ to his. She knew he didn't like her, that much was clear, but he was in _denial_ about something. She was going to find out what —hopefully before she was forced to leave the premises. She stared for a moment, at the cybernetic arm that lay on the counter, the bronze metal catching off the light from the ceiling. Before she was escorted out of the recreational room and down corridors amongst corridors.

-.-

He didn't knock on the door, simply unlocked it and walked inside of it. He had given her time to take a shower, to change and get all comfy in the room they had given her —which so happened to be one door away from his own, and on the same level as Steve's. Oh and his own had received some renovation since the last time he'd been in there— and while she did that, he had went around telling the other residing Avengers which consisted of Sam, Wanda, Natasha and Vision, that she was there amongst them. That the night might be eventful as it might not.

He got in slowly, he didn't like her, that did not mean he was above human decency in her presence. When he saw her sitting on the bed, he walked fully in and closed the door behind him. She had changed into a pair of light grey joggers with a matching sweater on top, her blonde hair was wet and falling freely around her face. He'd looked through her purse, just to make sure there wasn't any recording device, and then given it back to her, knowing it contained weapons.

It didn't matter.

He grabbed the nearby chair, and sat down on it, crossing his arms in front of his chest, then set his eyes down on her. She looked up, and looked at him as well. "Is he rising?" she asked him, and it was some time ago when he had last heard her sound like _that_ , almost afraid. He wanted to feel good about her fear, truth was, he didn't feel good about it, it didn't please him. Only scared him more than what he already was.

This was _their_ end game.

"Tell me everything you know about his plans?" he said, answering her questions by the way his own was phrased. She seemed to understand just this, which he hadn't doubted. Four years may have passed, but Annabeth Chase was always Annabeth Chase, and she was one of the smartest people he knew, just alongside Tony Stark, who was another enigma altogether.

"He kept implying it," she told him sadly. She looked beaten down, much more so than she had before. Almost like she had been crying but it had all washed away with the shower she had taken. "Don't you remember?"

He didn't shake his head, but didn't nod either. "I buried those memories four years ago, and I buried them deep under ground," he told her. "It's much quicker you just tell me what you know than I try to dig them back up." It wasn't up to discussion, he made so much clear. She either answered, or he would walk away, and since she seemed to really want to talk to him, he was going to use that against her to aid himself.

"He implied it," she said, her tone emotionless, like those very things were leaving her. "Every time he talked to you, told you how he was going to _break_ you to the core of your soul…It was always the unsaid." He closed his eyes slightly, for multiple reasons. For one the cackling sound of his chuckles was invading his head, and for two, he thought about what she was saying, what she had said before at the beginning.

If all that had happened after they got out was part of this _much_ bigger plan, if _he_ had planned it all…then he had managed. For years he'd mocked him, bragged about breaking him so, and then…if it _was_ him, then he had managed, because there had been nothing in the whole time he had been alive, that had hurt more than the betrayals he received that day. Nothing that had broken him deeper than the people he loved turning his back on him.

"It's not healthy, you know," she told him, her voice brought him back to reality. "Burying it down like that. One day you'll have to come to terms with them. It happened, you can't undo the past."

His metallic finger went to his brow as he leaned his elbow on the armrest of the chair, he kept sinking further into the chair. "What else do you know?" he asked her, ignoring her last statement.

"Why do you bury it down, Percy?" she asked him instead. "It's your past, it's what built you in the man you are today. You can't just ignore it. And as much as neither of us enjoyed it, it's what made us stronger. We thrived from it and we're still here. It gave us scars, _sure_ , but so did the wars. You shouldn't hide from it, you should learn form it—"

He stood suddenly, because _God_ was he getting annoyed by her know-it-all attitude. Sure it was in her DNA, that did not mean it was any less annoying. She couldn't just— "Stop it already," he snapped at her, interrupting her. "You don't get to just _barge_ into my life and start telling me how to live you. I won't allow you to that. I bury it because I can, because those were the worst years of my life. Now, if we're done with _that_ , what else do you know?"

She breathed in deeply, a defeated sigh. "Not much," she admitted after a moment she took to regain control of her emotions. He watched her go through it, and then sat back down on the chair. Standing up meant he was closer to her, and that could end up into a very _unexplainable_ situation. To desires he didn't —couldn't— see to fruition. "He probably wants some sick revenge for his late mate, Gaea, which means that the Giants will most likely back him up. That he's going to strike for Olympus, this one here, and…" she trailed off.

"And what?"

She looked at him, her jaw muscles feathering. She was getting annoyed by his questioning, good. That meant that if he lost it, it could be justified by her. "The gods are fighting again," she told him at last."

To _that_ there _was_ satisfaction bubbling in him. It _did_ please him that they were fighting, that they weren't a strong front anymore. That the king of them all assholes didn't have everyone on the council backing him. It felt good and it satisfied him, it pleased him dearly. "That's not new," he told her, realizing that he was exploiting her as of now. He was using her _urgent_ need to talk to him, so he could get information on what had been going _there_ for the past couple of years. What was going on now.

Annabeth gave him a look of exasperation, and it would have ignited a spark of pride in him, were it not for how on edge she seemed to be. He couldn't —even if he tried— find any satisfaction in _her_ pain, or the chaos that now must be her mind. "They're fighting about you," she told him then, and he understood if only so little why she had seemed on edge.

It brought him slightly on the edge as well. To them, he was supposed to be dead— he _was_ dead. Last they had heard about him he'd been blown to cinders by Zeus' master bolts, why were they now —after four years— still talking about him. He asked just that, "Why is that? They killed me."

"They _believe_ you're dead," she corrected him, sounding sad as she spoke. Why, he couldn't understand. "At least most of them do. None of them ever got full proof you were."

"What are you talking about?" he asked her after. This was getting touchy and a subject too close to home for his liking. He needed to know whether he was in danger, because if he was… If there was even a whisper of belief that he wasn't dead, he wasn't safe, and that meant that neither were the Avengers. It meant he'd need to start running again, and start soon.

"Well," she said, starting her thoughts. "Zeus is angry at Hades, and more so everyday. He never allowed anyone living person to meet your soul in his realm. Not Zeus or your father—" He quietly questioned himself as to why his father would want to see him. "—This is what gave me the idea that he was helping you out, that you were still alive. Then the next part I'm not so sure, but, if I managed to guess you were alive…then there's nothing out there to say my mother and other kids haven't guessed as well."

That's when his heart started beating quicker and _yes_ , his breathing hitched a notch. He tried his best to keep it from her, but it was hard to when they were talking about his very close death. She tightened her crossed legs to her body. He tried to play it cool. "So they know I'm alive?"

The smile she gave him was apologetic, and he felt it be genuine. How could he _hate_ her? "Probably," she told him sadly.

He didn't need her pity though. "Then, why haven't they killed me?" he asked her.

That's where her smile lit up, and some sort of contentment filled her. He figured, she was on his side for this after all, wasn't she? She had come here to apologize to him, and now was telling him everything he asked her. She _was_ on his side. Perhaps the one one. "Because they can't find you," she said. "They're too prideful to ask the demigods to search for you, because that would mean that they failed to kill you in the first place. _They can't have that_. And I'm guessing Zeus' anger towards Hades is part of this. He wants to know whether you're in his domain or not. He wants to know whether you managed to escape him, if he's going to become the laughing stock of Olympus."

He squinted down. "Can't they track me down?" he asked her, starting to slightly get confused on the matter. After all, Annabeth had always been the brains of their duo, he'd been more the brawn than anything else, although he could come out with sound plans as well.

"They could," she admitted. "But you don't have your godly powers anymore. You don't hold any connections with any of them. Either that or those you still hold connections to don't want to give you away."

 _Damn it_ , he cursed foully in his head. Damn it, damn it, damn it. This was _bad_. It was very bad. His father _knew_ he was alive, yet the question bounced around in his head as to why he hadn't ratted him out. The gods _thought_ he was still alive, and Poseidon, along with Hades both _knew_ he was alive. Why were they keeping the secret? Why were't they just telling their lousy excuse of a king about it so that the job could be done once and for all? Why!

He didn't want to owe either of them _anything_.

There was an uncomfortable silence after that, but then Annabeth decided to break the ice by asking, "So he _is_ rising?" Her words were clipped at the end and her tone…it held fear in it. Fear he understood because they had been through the same ordeal, and they'd gone through it together. She knew his weakest moment, like he knew hers.

He nodded, it was the least he could give her, but he gave her more because he was fair. There wasn't a better way for him to prove that to himself by sharing some of the information he knew, after all she'd told him. "There was an explosion a couple of nights ago," he told her. "The one to set it off, she was being _compelled_ by him. And I found traces of Polybotes' poison on what was used to compel her. I was the target. _He_ wanted to let me know its beginning."

"We're going to have to work together on that, you know that right?" she said to him. It was the realization that this was not the last of it that irked him. That he might find himself going to _her_ in the possible future, and going to her to fix things that irked him majorly.

He looked at her, his brows scrunched. "Yeah," he said. "But we're done for now." He stood up, brushing his jeans down. "So tomorrow you're going back to—wherever you cam from, and you're not going to tell them about me. I'll be leaving as soon as I think it's all that's left for me to do." He walked to the door, then stopped as he opened it and stepped through. He looked back at her, sitting on the bed and he had to exhibit a lot of control to not go to her and embrace her. "You can give your oath tomorrow morning, rest."

And then he was gone. Out of her room, closing it and locking it behind him and on his way to his own bed. Dreading what a night it was going to be.

.

 **AN heeey. So that went down hill, waddaya think is gonna happen next? Open for suggestions for later on since I'm almost done working on the next chapter.**

 **Review ppl, ur over 160 people, I'm sure you can review more, I'm pretty sure at least half of you read this story when it gets updated and those that helped me yesterday I thank you again.**

 **Think of it this way, you review, you make me motivated to write more and me writing more means faster updates XD a win win for all of us.**

 **I'm sounding desperate, ugh. I hate that.**

 **Oh and follow this story if ya wanna know more. I might change the summary and put a cover page on, but I need to work on both...**

 _._

 **SO yes, Have a good day u ppl and don't forget to smile, or maybe you should. Just,**

 **Wait for it**

 **Wait for it**

 **Wait for it**

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 **-Hunter**


	6. Losing Hope

**Hey there ppl and nice ppl, depends though, maybe you're neither and you're only nice whether you like this 'story' or not, if ya don't, well...**

 **So I don't exactly have a schedule as to how I update this thing, for now I'm following the one of my other active story, 'Demigods at Hogwarts' which means I update once every two Sundays, sometimes I've updated in between as well but Idk...**

 **So yeah, thank you so much for the reviews, I appreciate that you wrote them, really and *excited* almost 200 followers, XD. That's more wicked XD.**

 **So, um, Enjoy...? This is a dark chapter, please read at your own discretion (Rewritten 4th June 2018)**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _There was an uncomfortable silence after that, but then Annabeth decided to break the ice by asking, "So he is rising?" Her words were clipped at the end and her tone…it held fear in it. Fear he understood because they had been through the same ordeal, and they'd gone through it together. She knew his weakest moment, like he knew hers._

 _He nodded, it was the least he could give her, but he gave her more because he was fair. There wasn't a better way for him to prove that to himself by sharing some of the information he knew, after all she'd told him. "There was an explosion a couple of nights ago," he told her. "The one to set it off, she was being compelled by him. And I found traces of Polybotes' poison on what was used to compel her. I was the target. He wanted to let me know its beginning."_

 _"We're going to have to work together on that, you know that right?" she said to him. It was the realization that this was not the last of it that irked him. That he might find himself going to her in the possible future, and going to her to fix things that irked him majorly._

 _He looked at her, his brows scrunched. "Yeah," he said. "But we're done for now." He stood up, brushing his jeans down. "So tomorrow you're going back to—wherever you cam from, and you're not going to tell them about me. I'll be leaving as soon as I think it's all that's left for me to do." He walked to the door, then stopped as he opened it and stepped through. He looked back at her, sitting on the bed and he had to exhibit a lot of control to not go to her and embrace her. "You can give your oath tomorrow morning, rest."_

 _And then he was gone. Out of her room, closing it and locking it behind him and on his way to his own bed. Dreading what a night it was going to be._

 _._

 **X-X-Et Desperapant-X-X**

( _Losing Hope_ )

 _-.-.-_

4th December

-.-.-

 _He heard the cackling laughter in the darkness of it. Then black orbs glinted with maliciousness as they stared at his own. He felt pain in his right arm, deep and soul ripping pain, but when he reached with his other hand to hold it, to comfort it, perhaps cradle it, he met empty air. His breath hitched as he kept his eyes trained on the black eyes that stared at him._

 _He felt higher until he hit the stump. His left hand became sleeked with some liquid. Sticky and dense and it stuck to him. His right hand hurt, his fingers ached and his wrist seemed cramped up, but they weren't there. They were missing and he was alone, in the dark, black eyes as his only company. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the laughter, the stare he was getting._

 _When he opened his eyes again she was laying there, in a room tainted red. His right arm hurt still, but when he got there with his other hand, his fingers met cold metal. He felt nauseated, but not as much as seeing her, lying there, in a pool of red. Her eyes lifeless and staring at him. Her hand, her index finger pointing at him. Accusing him._

You'll do this _._

 _He scrambled over to her, grabbed her head in his, cradled it and wept._

 _The image changed in front of him. She changed shape and color. Looking like a decayed corpse, missing her —beautiful— grey eyes. She was being mutilated by an invisible force as he watched. The tears came quicker as her skin turned light blue/purple, and then…he could see her bones and the tissue under her skin was rotting green._

It's your fault.

 _He was sick right there, leaning on his hands as he emptied his stomach in front of himself. He turned his head, looking at her. His eyes stung. Her hair still hung around her, the only part of her that hadn't been ruined, that made him sure it_ was _her. Her face was nothing more but patches of skin and then her skull beneath, her body something similar, only wearing scrapped clothing._

-.-

Her gut awoke her.

She didn't understand why she'd awoken, but her heart was racing and her breathing was uneven. She remembered the past, she got flashes of it in her own mind. She remembered what had used to happen after they got out, the connection she had shared with him, and if this was anything similar, she was willing to bet that their close proximity was allowing it to manifest once more.

She knew she had to check for herself, she also knew they'd never let her out of their own accord, so she took things in her own hands. She was good at that. She searched for her shoes finding them tucked under the bed they had provided her with. She searched for the lock picking tools she had hidden in a small pocket she had sawed in the shoes herself.

She _had_ thought of the possibility of ending up in a locked room. She _was_ after all, a daughter of Athena. She was made to think ahead for possible outcomes, to think on her feet. It had already come in useful multiple times, the little lock picking set in her shoe. More times than she had told others.

She went for the lock of the door. Placed her two small needles within the key hole and twirled them around until she was satisfied with their position and then, with some more tinkering with the holes, she felt the satisfying little click that told her the lock was opened. She pressed down on the handle of the door, then peaked her head outside.

No one seemed to be around, the corridor was lit very softly by a lamp on the ceiling every so often steps. She was sure the lamp had a gradient which could be switched up, did she wish it. Across from her was a clock, it read barely five in the morning. She took a step outside and that's when she heard it. Someone talking.

She stopped in her tracks, like an antelope in headlights and listened _carefully_ … She exhaled softly, it was the television. She guessed —and she had no wish to prove herself true— that the super soldier was already awake and spending the early hours of the morning watching some shows that only showed at this ungodly hour of the morning. Something _old_ people did, she joked to herself, knowing it was so not true.

Her steps were soft as she followed her gut, and went in the direction of where the television was coming from, it was her gut feeling, telling her that _his_ room, was down there as well. She just had to take the risk it seemed, she didn't mind it. The worse that could happen, she alerted Steve Rogers of her waking and sneaking presence, they'd make commotion, he'd wake up anyway.

Either way, she'd have done what she had set out to do.

She stopped in front of a door, pressed her head to the it and quickly retracted it from it. He'd be moaning and whimpering far longer if she didn't go in there and help him, so might as well. She tried to simple push down the handle and open the door, and _was_ surprised when the door opened, allowing for a line of light to filter through the hole she'd made between the door and the wall.

She allowed it to filter further in, just enough so she could see him, lying in his bed. Thrashing and twisting. His brows furrowed in a tight brow and sweat. Loads and loads of sweat lay all over him. She could see the wetness glinting off him from the light she was casting into the room. She pushed the door closed, not completely, leaving it slightly ajar, then made her way to him.

He needed her help, even though he didn't know that yet, he needed her help.

She crouched down next to him, held his wrist down. "Percy," she called out softly. "Wake up, you're having a bad dream." She knew that wasn't going to be enough, but she had to try the easy way first. She placed her hand on his shoulder, feeling the sweat on it, being grossed out but…this was _him_ , she couldn't be grossed out for that. "Wake up," she told him again, her voice slightly louder, she could care less if Steve walked in and scolded her for being in there. "You're okay, we're _both_ okay." He might have implied he didn't care, but he had always cared. "You're out of there. You're okay."

She shook him, gently, and goddamned she was not prepared. Not prepared for him to swing out of his bed and stand up, wrap his cybernetic hand around her throat and slam her agains the wall. She might have cried out, truth was, she had not expected such a thing to occur, not had it ever. When she'd used to bring him back from them, he used to be much more _calm_ , although in panic, he never attacked her. This was new.

He looked like the incarnation of the devil himself, and she did not mean Hades. She meant the devil that they all thought about as _the_ devil. His eyes were a fire of green and blue, and they were twirling. His expression killed her, and it crushed her soul so much she was panicking because —this was not the Percy she remembered. This was the Percy that had plagued _her_ nightmares after their first trip down in hell, when he'd bested Misery with her own poisons.

This was the dark side of Percy she had always dreaded, although never had it made her feelings for him waver. She had loved him no matter what.

But he looked scared. One moment he was looking like her assassin —he had been very close to— the next he was looking scared, his eyebrows furrowing together in confusion this time, not anger. Arching backwards, and then his eyes were getting shiny all over. His hand shook on her neck and it quickly removed itself from it, just as his eyes cleared.

He bent sideways and was sick all over the floor. She swallowed down, holding her neck for a moment, before she pulled him to his feet and led him through a doors she had guessed led to his bathroom. She found it, and he stumbled towards the toilet, then held onto the edges as he emptied his stomach some more.

 _Then_ the footsteps came, hurrying towards them. An undignified sound from the other room, and Steve Rogers was in the doorframe of the bathroom. He looked at him, then looked at her questioningly. He looked back at Percy. "God, Percy are you all right?" he asked, walking over, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder.

Percy waved him away, keeping one hand on the toilet seat. "I'll be right out," he told him.

Steve acknowledged the request for him to leave. She watched as the Captain walked back to the door to the bathroom and stopped in the doorframe again. He pointed to the direction of the exit of the room. "I'll be in the lounge area, if you need anything. Just call me over." Percy nodded his head, although he didn't turn to look at Steve. Steve looked at her, and she got the meaning behind his gaze, ' _Hurt him and I'll hurt you back_.'

She had no intention of hurting him. Instead she walked over to the sink, grabbed the nearby towel and sprayed cold water over it. She brought it back to him after turning on the light. His shirt was completely soaked with sweat and his shorts didn't seem in a much better condition. She crouched next to him, hesitating, before she set the towel down next to them and then pushed him off the toilet.

Had he needed to puke some more, he'd have resister her. He didn't however resist her, at all. He let her go at it, do what she'd done to him many times before when something like this had occurred, because it _had_ most definitely occurred countless times. She leaned him on the wall, glancing at his expression to his eyes dulled over, like he was in pain, but he wasn't going to tell anyone about it. She saw the first of the many tears to come slip out of his eyelids.

Didn't comment on it, simply started to raise his shirt up so that he could cool off. He needed that, and she _knew_ it helped _him_. Always had since they had decided to try it out. His arms were dead weight —heavy dead weight thanks to the cybernetic lower half of his right one— as she raised them so that she could slip the shirt off. She didn't goggle at his well sculpted frame. Instead grabbed the wet and cold towel, and started to slide it across his body.

He let her do it, with a dead expression, but he let her do it. She knew he didn't want her to, but she was sure he preferred her doing this rather than Steve. She'd already seen him this way, she wasn't sure she wanted Steve to. She didn't think he wanted any of them to ever see him this way. It was low and intimate and just…personal. She wouldn't like it if anyone ever saw her like this, it felt like being stripped to the core and being looked upon with a magnifying glass.

At least he was comfortable with her doing it.

She made a mistake to look at his face, see if he was looking a little less stressed than he had just the previous moment. Saw him staring off into nowhere as she rubbed the cloth on him, getting rid of the sweat and replacing it with a feeling of freshness. His hair stuck to the sides of his face, and she hated it, that it do so because he was sweating from a _nightmare_. He should be sweating because of a workout, or the heavy sun, not _this_.

She stood up, walked up to the sink and risked the towel, knowing it wasn't doing any more good to him as it was getting soaked with blood. She washed it until it was as cool as before walking back to him and getting back to it. Rubbing the sweat away, slowly, her hand going every scar and every mark left behind by all the time they had been together. From Kronos to now.

Then his eyes set on her. He was shaking slightly. She had the _silliest_ thought. "I'm sorry, if I caused this," she told him. "I didn't mean to uh… _trigger_ something in you or…"

"You didn't do anything," he told her softly and her own vision turned slightly blurry, he blinked. A tear slipped out. "They've been coming back since the bombing. You're just a catalyst."

"I can call Steve in, if you—" she stopped when he shook his head slightly. She couldn't stay. The guilt might as well eat her alive. "They won't know," she told him, deciding to leave. She could do that for him. If he was a catalyst and this was his reaction to seeing her…then she didn't think she got to be selfish about it. He didn't need her, not like she needed him. He didn't want her, and for good reason. So she'd leave, if it meant that he felt better and got better, she'd leave and never ever go back to him, unless he came to her. Then she'd be game. "You have my oath to you, I would never tell them about you."

She stood on shaky legs, leaving the wet towel on him, hoping it could still help him if he wanted it to. Stopped in the doorway to the bedroom when she heard his soft rasped whisper of a voice, "I know." Had she been breathing just a little louder she would have missed it. She turned to look at him, but he wasn't looking at her, so she walked out.

She told herself she was walking out of his life by doing that, but…even she knew this wasn't it. Their paths would cross for the long years that still awaked either of them in their eventful lives full of horror. She told herself that this was _not_ the last time that they were seeing one and the other. They'd see each other again, but never would she feel so close to him as now.

The tears started flowing as she opened the door, stepped into the corridor and then closed the door behind herself. They came down in a waterfall. She placed the back of her hand under her nose as they came down harder. Her back falling on the door as she leaned for support. _This was it_. This was _fucking_ it. She yelled in her head. She wanted to scream, wanted to hold powers such that she could scream and unleash hell upon the whole world. But she didn't.

She simply stood there weeping, until an award cough resounded. "Everything all right, ma'am, I heard some…commotion." She opened her eyes to see a dark man standing in front of her. Sam Wilson, her brain whispered the name into her head. His accent was charming to say the least, but it did nothing to lift her spirits.

She looked towards the lounge area Steve had talked about, to see him emerging from it, walking towards them. She shook her head, but then sniffed so hard that all the snot that was flowing out her nose went straight back up. She cleared her throat slightly. "I'm sorry for whatever inconvenience I caused," she told them, looking between the two. "I'll be leaving very shortly." She started walking away, back to her room so she could get her stuff and then leave, then stopped and turned around. "Please take care of him," she said, and her voice broke at the ends.

"Is he all right?" Steve asked her, as she was till waiting for them.

She looked back at the door, wishing she had the courage to go back in there and talk to him. Hug him. Be close with him. Comfort him. She shook her head. "But he will be," she told him after a beat. "He's got you guys after all."

She left after that.

 _Actually_ left, with her heart in a million pieces, which was exactly what she had thought would happen.

-.-

He didn't show up when Steve and Sam had their breakfast, he usually did. He didn't show up when they went for a jog. He usually did.

-.-

It took her two hours to get from the Avenger's compound to Camp Half-Blood.

A quick thought passing her that she _was_ going to search for a home in New York once this was all over. And by this she meant Tartarus. Because she was sick of calling this place home.

When she reached the border of the camp, she didn't stop to gawk at the view in front of her, rather, picked up her pace as she walked towards New Athens. Towards her house, her small bag swinging uselessly behind her. She'd managed to stop crying during the ride back, but she knew that if she stopped moving for long enough, the tears would come right on out and then more than too many people would stop to gawk at _her_.

The thought of him alone, in that bathroom…it shook her.

That she was never going back…it broke her.

She didn't care that people stopped their activities to look at her rush towards the not so new but still new city. Didn't care if they saw the tears in her eyes that were coming and she was barely containing. Or her distraught expression as she walked by them. She didn't care, about none of it, she just wanted to go home and…drink herself to sleep.

She'd left her son in the care of one Titan Leo had managed to rescue after blowing Gaea to hell. He'd manage a couple more hours without his mother, she was sure he would. the thought of him almost managed to push through her barrier of grief, but she dismissed it as quickly as it came, telling herself she'd go get him when she had put herself back together. No point in letting her boy see her in this depressed state of mind.

As soon as the door of her house closed behind her, she let go of everything she was holding, both in her hands and inside of her. She let it all out without dignity. Walked over to the cabinet she held locked in the living room, grabbed the first bottle —which happened to be _booze_ — and upon seeing it she threw it on the floor, smashing the glass and spilling the contents. Gods was she a mess. She grabbed the next bottle, this of whiskey and then crumpled into one of the sofas.

Opened it and drank.

-.-

Calypso had known Annabeth had gone to the city to follow another lead on her ex lover, someone she herself had once —a long time ago— held affections for before Leo, before Hayden —her own little boy, who was two years older than Charlie— before everything else that came with being free from her curse. She had more than been happy when her boy had been put into her care. When she her friend barging into camp so _sadly_ , she knew something was wrong. She had never —not on any of her other leads— seen Annabeth so distraught and simply so _broken_.

After talking to Piper, and leaving the two boys in her care as they played with Piper's own daughter, Kylie, a four year old that resembled both Jason and Piper in their own damn pretty way. She was happy with her own son, Hayden, as well as his older sister, Esperanza who was in her early teens.

She followed Annabeth —albeit a couple of yard behind— into the city of New Athens, and then to her home, to which she had a spare key. She knocked on the door once, no response. She knocked again and again, up to five times. She received no answer whatsoever, but she knew that Annabeth was inside. She'd go in, using her spare key, and ask her whether everything was okay.

She'd leave if it was requested.

She rammed the key in the lock, and turned, unlocking the door and then slipping the key out as she pushed the door open. Immediately the sound of sobbing reached her ears. It wasn't some pretty girl, crying her eyes out and being quiet about it. No, it was hard and ugly sobbing. She turned the entrance hall to see her curled up on the sofa, a bottle of whiskey on the floor.

Another pungent odor filling the room that was not whiskey. She looked towards the cabinet she knew contained all her liquors, and was surprised to see a bottle of booze shattered on the floor, the contents spilled on the wooden floor. She hurried towards the mess, knowing this would be an easier feat than making Annabeth find peace with her self. She knew what it was like, hoping for someone who was never coming back. It had been her curse for eons.

She scooped up the glass shards and placed them within a plastic bag, then dropped a mop on the mess the liquor itself had made. After she was done with that, she left it there, so it could get soaked and she could later pick it up and throw it away. She made her way to Annabeth, who was half way through the bottle.

She sat down on the single couch, in front of her. "Annabeth," she said gently, leaning on the end of the chair so to rest a comforting hand on Annabeth's elbow. "What happened?" Annabeth didn't respond, which didn't surprise her all that much. It only encouraged her to get closer. She scooted over so that she was with her legs bent at the base of the sofa Annabeth sat on. "You can tell me."

Annabeth bit her lip, and Calypso readied herself for the news she had heard many times before. "He— he wasn't there."

-.-

Jason waved a small greeting to Piper and his daughter as he stepped up the porch of the Big House and walked inside. He was happy to see them there, although he wondered where Calypso had wondered to that was that important she left both Hayden and Charlie behind with his own _mate_ , or better still, _wife_. He grinned as he thought about that as he walked to Chiron's office, just the thought made him realize how _lucky_ he was. Immortality and a growing family. He sincerely hoped that Kylie was only the first, not the last.

He had gained Percy's role over the passing years. First when he went missing for fourteen years and then after his apparent death. No one had seen the body, so of course there was doubt, but they all believed him to be dead. He was talked about as if he were dead, by all but Annabeth. She'd been in denial since word had gotten around that Hades wasn't allowing anyone to see his soul. He wasn't about to go raining on her hope, but he believed what they said. He was dead.

He hadn't fully wanted the role of leader, he didn't think it right to grab Percy's role in the camp whilst he was MIA. But seeing the camp in rubble had quickly made him change his mind. He was a son of Jupiter, and he knew that someone needed to be on top, overlooking the healing of the camp. Someone that had fought for them, and someone the camp trusted. So he had gotten on top, telling himself it was only until Percy would come back. Because he had known he was going to come up, he wouldn't believe otherwise.

He left the camp through the making of New Athens, thought expanding their territory, growing old and settling in the new city.

When Percy and Annabeth came back from hell, he had been so relieved, but seeing their state, he knew he couldn't simply dump all the responsibility on Percy. He knew he had to wait it out, until he was strong enough to even just enjoy the daily activities the camp offered like he had once used to. He was still relieved, because he was sure that Percy wouldn't back out from leading again.

He'd take it up happily.

He had never been so wrong.

Especially since the son of Poseidon ended up as an outcast amongst the gods. Jason didn't want to believe it, but he had seen it with his own eyes, and he had been there. The weeks following he had felt guilty, he had wrecked his brain, trying to see if maybe he saw something wrong. That made it hadn't been him. He told the gods so much but they denied the possibility. He couldn't have lied, not after he swore not to.

After that, the weight of the world came crashing back down on his back. Percy was out of the game. He was exiled and being hunted down by demigods, hunters and gods alike. No one trusted him anymore, his parents were killed shortly after the whole fiasco, and he was gone. Jason was left to lead alone, with no one to help him through it.

And then he had heard the news along with everyone else. ' _He's dead,_ ' ' _Zeus blasted the whole place to cinders_ ,' ' _The hunters got him_.'

Whatever Percy had done, _that_ was not what he had deserved. He'd been mad at his father after that for a very long time. Not only his father, he'd been mad at all of the gods for a long time. Until the pain of the loss for the second time subsided to the back of his mind, and he continued to live out his life beside Piper, and as the leader of Camp Half-Blood.

He knocked on the door that led to the office of the old centaur. In return he heard the permission to silently slip inside and did just that, to see Chiron stacking piles of paper on top of each other along with files booklets and stuff like that. He was cleaning up, it seemed. His horse part of the body was encased in the magical wheelchair so that only his human half was visible and even that covered by leather armor.

"You asked to see me?" Jason asked as he closed the door behind himself. A younger demigod —of the new generation, as they liked to call them— had come to get him ten minutes prior from where he had been about to start teaching his first lessons for the day on sword fighting.

Chiron looked up from all the papers laying on his desk at him. "Ah, yes," he said, almost like he had forgotten about it. "Take a seat." He gestured to the two chairs in front of the desk behind which he sat.

He couldn't think much of the behavior, nothing grave had happened recently. No one had died, or gotten seriously hurt, so he was left to wonder what this was about. As he got close to though, he saw the bags under Chiron's eyes, the ways his hands twitched here and there, and he started to feel something to be wrong. Very wrong. Demigods were the ones who had ADHD, not centaurs.

"Is something wrong?" Jason asked, putting his confusion out there.

Chiron in return, look at him very gravely as he put the last pile of files on the huge pile on the side of his desk and nodded slowly. "Something is _very_ wrong," he said, which alarmed Jason. With good reason it seems because Chiron went on to say, "A girl, —I'm sure you've heard of it— Lacy, daughter of Aphrodite, immortal herself, died a couple of days ago. She wasn't killed by monsters, and it wasn't old age. She set off a bomb at a steakhouse."

On the other hand, someone _had_ died recently. He had just forgotten in the heat of the moment. He had heard about it the day after it had happened, seen it on the news and read the articles online. As well as, comforted Piper, after all Lucy had been one of her many numerous sisters. He couldn't understand though —apart from the part where she died and set off a bomb— what was wrong about it?

"You know why she did it?" Jason guessed, thinking it the only reason why he hd been called to the office. Unless _he_ had done something wrong, which he didn't believe so. He hadn't broken any of the rules of the camp and laws of the city for the past month. He was well on track.

But Chiron shook his head. "That's not the problem," he told him.

"Then what it?"

Chiron leaned over, opening a drawer and bringing out an extract from a newspaper article. There was a photo on it, but he couldn't see it from where he sat. "The problem is the man that was with her," Chiron told him and he was more confused than before. What man was he talking about?

He asked just that, casting for Chiron to sigh as he looked down at the newspaper article extract. "Apparently this man is known to have been with her in her dying moments. Close witnesses of the unfortunate event place have been helping her clog the blood on her abdomen. He tried to save her," Chiron told him, looking up from the article. He had more than one paper in his hand. "They also say that the tone he was using was nowhere near the one you sue towards one who is close to death. Although they didn't hear anything over the chaos. Then they saw him take something from her, a bracelet, before he ran out of the building. Suspicious?"

Jason frowned, he didn't even want to know _who_ the man had been, might do him more bad than good. He focused on the bracelet. "What's this bracelet have to do with it?"

Chiron switched papers, this was the picture, which Jason still couldn't see. "On today's newspaper the NYPD shared some of the investigation regarding the accident, and said that some camera feeds show the bracelet he took, a symbol of a deity embedded on it." He paused, just enough to know that Jason was intrigued. "Tartarus, which is the bigger problem. The not so big problem, but still _a_ problem is the man who took the bracelet."

"A demigod?" Jason guessed, who else would know Lacy, be with her, and take something from her that symbolized the deity of hell. Who else but a god.

Chiron's eyes were grave as he nodded once more. "I have reason to believe it was Percy Jackson."

-.-

He hadn't shown himself for the whole day to anyone. After Steve had seen him throwing his guts out in the toilet with Annabeth over him, tending to him, he was sure there would be questions and truth was, he was ready to answer them. He was ready to tell them everything that he knew because it was either that or he would run and he was honestly tired of running.

But he need to get his shit together. He hadn't had a breakdown like that since forever. He hadn't been that _scared_ and felt so _helpless_ since before he had been shunned and hunted across the earth by the gods. What he had dreamed of, it had scarred him. The imaged he saw, it was something that wasn't going to go away anytime soon. Then waking up to seeing her, in the flesh and alive and healthy…god he has so needed to puke.

Then he had felt _good_ letting her tend to him. That was one of the few methods they had found over the months that worked on him, and he wasn't about to ask Steve or Sam to help himself clean his body when there was so much they still didn't know about him. How could he have explained it. Plus, it would have been in-dignifying and her presence there was already enough. More than enough but he had felt _good_ and _safe_ with her doing it. But after what he had seen in his sleep, he couldn't bring himself to look at her, not without seeing the contorted version of her instead.

When she had left, it hadn't taken him long before he found himself leaning over the toilet again, throwing the remainder of his guts out. Then crying, because he felt _lonely_ right then _._ He wasn't sure _she_ was the person he missed or if it was something else he was missing, but at that moment, when he had been left there in his bathroom in the state he'd been in, he had felt like the most lonely man in the whole wide world.

Not for the first time he had wanted to end it.

But he hadn't because that would show them all that he had been weak, that he had been given a second chance at life and he had thrown it out of the window. So he didn't, although for that couple of moments, he had really felt like it had been the only way out. Of course it wasn't, it never was. It never had been, every time he'd thought about it, and hadn't done it, he had then found something that told him he'd taken the right choice.

Ending wasn't a way out.

It was hours before he got decent, and even more time before he got out of his room to grab something to eat from the fridge in their minibar. Luckily Steve nor Sam had been there when he had emerged, because he hadn't wanted to talk to them. Not yet, anyway. No, the talk would wait for the night. He had gone right back to his room after that, quickly after, thrown his guts out from the small amount of food he had put in his stomach.

He didn't let it stop him.

He forced the food out, knowing it was going to come anyway and then took the second shower that day because vomit gloom was disgusting. As well as the smell. After that he just thought about it, how he was ever going to tell them all about his messed up life so that they knew what exactly they had signed up for when they had told him that they had his back. They needed to know.

So at an hour he knew everyone had already had their dinner, maybe all together after all that _did_ happen, he made his way to where he suspected everyone was, and found them just there. When they saw him, half of them looked immediately, stopping their conversation, the other half carried on but stopped when the first half didn't.

Percy grimaced, went to the minibar to make himself a cup of coffee. This was going to be a long night. He set the mug under the machine and looked at them. Well he sure as hell had their attention so he might as well say something before they stopped looking and went back to their conversations. "What I'm about to tell you doesn't go beyond these walls," he said, breaking any eye-contact he got and looking down at his mug as it got filled with hot coffee. "You can choose whether you want to believe me or not, but it doesn't of beyond the walls, clear?"

He must have looked like shit, if the way they looked at him was any indication. It was Tony who spoke. Tony whom had become a very good friend of his over the years. "If we knew wha tyou were talking about, perhaps we could agree."

"I didn't ask for it," he said soon after. Not missing a beat although with a bit of hesitation. He was telling them his life story. "I can swear it to my mom's grave, I never asked for it. All I wanted was to fit in _somewhere_. It didn't work."

"What are you talking about?" Tony asked him, trying to stop him for a moment from all the mumbling.

Percy looked at him, for the first time since walking into the room. He looked at all of them. "I'm half god."

.

 **So obviously, I had to leave it at that... That was... i think the beginning was darkish, and then the ending too...tell _me_ what _you_ thought**

 **Enjoyed, pls review and follow this story bcs yolo, and bcs it makes me happy.**

 _._

 **So yeah, stay tuned for more, XD**

 **Hunter**


	7. One Hell of a Tale

**200 followers? Gee thank you guys, that's wonderful! And to think I haven't written even that much for this story, not yet anyways ;)**

 **So I thank you for the reviews and kind *cough cough* comments... no just kidding, I loved the reviews and thank you for taking the time to leave one. XO**

 **So yeah, I'll update every two weeks, every Sunday or Monday morning, depends from my school schedule, although I'll try my best to update on Sunday. And what sucks is that I can't copy and paste from the iPad that I wrote on, so I have to send it to my PC and then do it from there, which I kinda hate but whatever, ya know, as long as I get it done on time and I don't forget.**

 **So yeah, Enjoy... (Rewritten 16th August 2018)**

.

 **X-X-Infernum Sit Fabula De-X-X**

( _One Hell Of A Tale_ )

There was silence after that. Each and everyone one of them looked at him like he wasn't in his right mind, or like he'd grown another head. They looked like they were all there just waiting for him to say ' _Ah, I'm kidding. Got you, didn't I?_ ' But those words didn't come and everyone, apart from Natasha —who had already known this— seemed to be sorely disappointed and confused.

He wasn't sorry to have said it, it didn't get any better, when Tony stood up and walked around the couch he'd been sitting on. "So you're serious," he asked him. He crossed one arm over his chest and the other pointed him from head to toe. "A god."

He set the mug of coffee down on the counter, but didn't let go. "Look, just half," he corrected him solemnly. His eyes drooped, _god was he tired_ and _sad_ and _lonely_. He just wanted to get this conversation quickly out of the way, although he knew that this was going to be anything but _quick_.

"Okay," Sam said, he too crossing his arms in front of him. He seemed like he was willing to listen to him, like this was crazy but he was willing to believe it. "Please explain, then," he said with his usual -I don't take anything seriously any more than Tony- tone.

He sighed, deeply, then took a sip from the still very hot coffee he had in the mug. Set it back down, looked at Tony, Steve. "I know this sounds crazy—"

Sam was quick to agree to him. "It does," he was saying, still that tone of -I think this is bullshit but I'm willing to believe you. Percy was grateful as much as he wasn't, it was helpful that he wasn't _mad_ or completely against the idea, but it did not help that he wasn't serious. That he was all cheerful when he felt like complete _shit_.

"Thor's a demigod," Steve said, and Tony gestured to him in agreement as he walked over to the minibar. To the counter that contained the alcoholic beverages. Percy looked at Steve, slightly perplexed, there he was — _God's righteous man_ — believing in other divine beings apart from God. "So it's not impossible. But it does come with a shock."

Tony had a glass in one of his hands, a scotch bottle in the other. "Not really," he said, waving the glass around. "Guy's always had something hiding behind the whole _gods are after me_ , tale."

Percy could hear the hurt behind Tony's voice. He could understand why he needed the scotch, perhaps this wasn't something he specifically wanted to be completely sober for. Perhaps he was hurt that after everything, he hadn't trusted him with this. He understood, so he explained himself. "They _were_ after me. They wanted —they want me _dead,_ " he told them and his voice broke at the end. He recomposed himself quickly enough.

Tony made his way back to the couch he had been sitting on, sat down, crossed his legs. Mocked him in his movements because he was definitely mad. It was Steve, however, that said, "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

She told them.

He told them everything, leaving nothing out of the way. If they were going to help him fight this, they might as well know everything he knew. As much as he could manage to tell them about himself. He thought they all —at this point— deserved to know who he was, and how exactly he had ended up in that warehouse those four years ago, after living on the streets.

Why his skin seemed to heal when in contact with water, even though he so clearly _had_ been disowned. Why he could still feel, and get a reaction from water.

He told them about finding out about this _absurd_ world of mythology, where there existed _princesses with blonde curls_ that managed to captivate his heart. He told them about her, about Grover, Jason, Frank, Leo, Piper, Hazel. He told them about Luke and Thalia, and Nico. Beckendorf's sacrifice. About the gods themselves, about his multiple visits to Olympus. He told them about Kronos, the war that he'd been in for five long years, but how they came on top. About denying _godhood_ for _her_. His relationship with his father…

About getting kidnapped soon after, by one of the gods, the journey of amnesia he went through in those first few months (he noticed it then, Steve's expression hardened, he tried to ignore it, he couldn't). He told them about the Roman camp, and they listened. About Gaea and the Giants. About his second world stomping quest. About _her_ quest under Rome (— _Kid you've been to_ Rome _?_ —) and then finally about falling into Tartarus that first time. Then the journey out and the defeat of Gaea. He left out the fight he'd had at the bottom of the ocean, where he'd given up fighting. Where he had thought he wasn't worth it and just…let the poison take him.

About Leo and that golden explosion in the sky. Then he told them what happened afterwards. What Natasha and Clint knew little detail of, what no one knew much more than that because it was hard _to talk about_. Or it had been, when he'd had someone to tell it to before his life went to complete hell.

He took a break, breathing evenly and going to rinse his mug. He'd sat down on one of the couches, getting a better ability to talk to them and, _convey_ the story in a better manner. Everyone had gotten comfortable, they hadn't interrupted him, or called him a liar this far. They'd asked questions for sure, and Tony had gotten to the end of his bottle of liquor, but apart from that everything was still respectably calm.

"Is everything okay?" Natasha asked him, she was sitting on the other hand than from where he was sitting.

He looked at her, then at the others, some who looked half asleep, the other looking expectedly. His eyebrows scrunched up, could be called a sad expression, but it was more. It was pained and sad and distraught and _scared_. It was all of those put together. It was deeper than just one emotion. "This next part," he said, slowly. "It's nasty."

"How nasty you talkin' about?" Sam asked him, he seemed to be one of the more understanding ones. Tony was on the far opposite end of understanding. He looked pissed and hurt at the same time. Something he was going to need to fix at one point or another.

He raised his cybernetic arm, curled and uncurled his fingers, flexing them, pointedly meaning, ' _This nasty_ '. Sam made an _approving_ gesture, and noise. He sat back in his couch, his hands clasping in front of him. "Whenever you're ready, man."

 _Man,_ about the only one that upon meeting hadn't called him 'kid' or 'the young one'. Always treated him as the age he claimed to be, and was now going to explain.

So he started…

-.-

 _It wasn't a week after the war had ended. Everything was…okay, if you didn't count the fact that Leo got killed. They were healing, everyone was building each other back up just fine. But then one night—…He reached his cabin…and that's when it happened._

 _The lights didn't turn on, which he found to be the first clue that something was…definitely not right. He grabbed his pen —Riptide— and tried to get ready. So then he heard the door lock behind him and he knew that whatever it was. He knew it was dangerous. So he extended his blade and just tried to be ready for it._

 _Soon enough, though, he started having difficulty breathing. He felt that there was something in the room, some sort of knockout gas. How they managed to get their hands on that type of stuff, he had no idea. He had no idea, or how they weren't getting affected. He just knew that they weren't._

 _He soon found himself to be drowsy and just felt so dizzy._

 _Something broke, it sounded so much like one of the bunks, but it was pitch black. He couldn't see it whether it was that or not, and before he fully comprehend it, he felt this huge thing hit him in the back, right at the top of his back. It put his ability to breathe well down the drain, the knockout gas in the air and now the blow to his back._

 _It was efficient to send him on all fours in time._

 _It wasn't going down without a fight._

 _He used his powers to sense the water particles around him, giving him eyes even in the dark. So when he felt something getting awfully close to his face, he was able to parry it to the side. It had been a foot. He turned around so briskly his sword accidentally hit one of them, if the groan he heard was anything to go by._

 _He knew I couldn't keep his fronts up for much longer. Sooner rather than later, the gas was going to get better of me. He kept fighting until he got knocked out, but eventually they got the better of him._

-.-

"What happened after?" Tony asked, sounding interested, although the tone wasn't one of particular kind.

Percy looked at him, gave him a sad smile. "I woke up in hell."

Tony was also the first one to react to what he was saying. "Say what?" But there wasn't disbelief ni his voice, indeed he seemed to be believed. Rightly so, since he bared visible scars to show that indeed, he _had_ gone through hell.

"Yeah," he nodded along to the shock that had been int the voice. "I got kidnapped and then was brought straight back to hell." His eyes darkened, something like anger flashed in them, and sadness. "But I wasn't alone."

There was a moment quiet. Then, " _She_ was there with you," Wanda guessed.

He nodded to her, turning to look at her, then turning back to Tony. His eyes had been on him most of the time, sometimes Steve, then Sam's…but primarily on Tony. "If anything, we should have expected it," he told them. "Actually…He had us right under his nose, and we made a fool of him by getting out of his domain. We just celebrated the prospect that we _had_ managed to get out. We didn't even think about the possibility of him trying to get pa back. Then Gaea was defeated…We _should_ have seen it coming."

Tony seemed to get over the shock, leaning back in his chair. Sinking further into it. "How was it?" he asked sarcastically, earning a warning and disappointed look from Steve, a sad one from him.

"It was _pure hell_ ," he said, resting his head on the backrest of the couch. His eyes closed for a moment, images had started coming up in his head, he tried to block them all out. "Fourteen years, _locked. in. a. cell._ "

Tony was respectful not to respond with a snarky comment, but he watched annoyed and nauseous amongst different emotions.

"He got impatient at one point," he said, no one really knowing what he was talking about. "He…damaged the uh… _real_ one so badly that it didn't heal with anything he tried. Not even his own power. He spent days trying to heal it, but nothing worked. So then one day, a yell of rage, swing of the sword and its gone." He kept his eyes on the bronze hand.

The rest of them caught on. Disgust etched on their faces.

"His goal," he said like a rhetorical question. "Revenge. Vengeance. Someone to throw back at the gods and show them that no one got to go in his domain and get out with no consequences. Send back crippled and broken demigods. Show that there were _always_ consequences for defying him. And they're not over yet."

"And he let you go?" Tony asked him, incredulously and confused. "Keeps you captive for fourteen years and then lets you go?"

He nodded his head, recalling the conversation he'd just had the day before with a certain grey eyed demigoddess. "She explained it to me," he told them. "And once I'm done telling you everything, you'll understand it as well…You see, wars aren't planned in a day or in a month. They take years if its going to be of any impact whatsoever."

-.-

 _When they got back, things had changed._

 _Fourteen years after their capture, he let them go for no apparent reason. The last thing he remembered of that wretched place was his cold hearted laughter ringing through his brain. Obsidian black orbs glinting with evil in ming, and a malicious grin as he cackled with laughter. His finger snapping and all of it distorting like in a vortex._

 _Then they were laying in the middle of a street. People were scrambling away and towards them. Then he saw his own green eyes reflected into a man. Preoccupied yet relieved as they locked with his own. A small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He put one hand around his neck, and the other under his legs and then everything turned black._

 _When he woke up everything was different._

 _He was in an actual bed, for the first time in over fourteen years. He felt_ okay _. Not good, but okay. He let his breathing steady, closed his eyes to smell the fresh and un-toxic air. Let a small smile tug at his lips, but then his thoughts tunneled down from there._

 _What if it was all just a dream?_

 _Certainly not the worst that Tartarus had done._

 _Quickly he realized that Annabeth was nowhere near him. Hell, he was alone in this huge and dimly lighted room. Laying on a bed. He panicked. And rightfully so._

 _He didn't think as he threw the covers off his body —how he even had the strength to that, he didn't know— but he did, and in no time he was on his feet. On shaky feet, but he was standing. For about a moment, because his legs gave out as soon as all of his weight was on them._

 _The huge doors bursted open, a stimuli which made him catch his breath and then scramble backwards as he acknowledged his father running towards him. He muttered one word then, one name, so sad and lonely on a frail voice, "Annabeth?"_

 _The sea god approached him slowly at that, his hands displayed in front of him, palms facing up, showing he meant no harm. "She's okay—"_

 _"Where—" his voice cracked as he interrupted his father. "Where is she?" he said in one shaky breath._

 _"The room next door," he assured him._

 _He involuntarily let out a deep sigh of relief at seeing his father's face bare of worry. It meant she was safe. That she was okay. But he needed to see her, so asked tentatively, "Can I—Can I see her?"_

 _His father didn't look so sure about it. "Maybe it's better—"_

 _Who was he to know what was better for him? "Please, dad, I need to—"_

 _But his words were lost when the sea did hugged him, and he found himself hugging back. The physical contact making him understand just how real it was. That he was actually home and the tears couldn't be held back anymore. They came all out, along with all the emotions he was feeling. All of those he had been keeping to himself for the past decade…fear and utter terror._

 _His father held him, telling him that everything was going to be okay._

 _He'd been lying of course._

 _It was anything but okay after that._

 _For the first few days, it was almost like he couldn't_ function _without her. Days became weeks, and eventually a month. But luckily enough, by the time they decided to go back to camp, see their old friends, they had both gained their independence back._ He _had gained his independence back, after all, he knew he was affected worse than she was._

 _Things_ had _been worse for him, and he had the metal arm to prove when she didn't._

 _It was around February, that they decided to go back. A time by which they had both already visited their respective families and spent some time with them. He got to learn that he had a younger sister, by the name of Estelle, one with whom he found mutual liking immediately. She on the other hand got to find out that her step mother had died of cancer._

 _Things had changed._

 _As they overlooked the valley for the first time in over fourteen years, they held hands, but a smile couldn't manage to reach up to their eyes, not even to their lips. She glanced at him, and her eyes tried to reassure him that it was going to be fine. That_ they _were going to be fine. Everything was going to be okay._

 _He pulled the neck of his jacket up, so that it was closer to his neck, his neck covered by a black hoodie. She too was well covered, after all, it was the middle of February and it was cold as hell._

 _They took the step across the boundary into camp together and it that moment so many different emotions cursed through his body that he lost count after he acknowledged ten._

 _They kept on walking, step after step, deeper into the place they both used to call home. They got weird stares coming from bypassing campers, something that used to never happened before. He remembered then, that when he had once walked through, the others would smile at him, even wave. Having them look over him with confused and threatening stares…that was something new._

 _That wasn't the only difference he noticed of that day. Another was that there were so many campers. When he had gone there, there were a maximum of a hundred, quickly growing to two, but it now seemed like four, even five. New buildings littered the sides of the path and as he glanced at the cabins —which had once only been twelve— he found he had difficulty localizing his own._

 _They didn't stop. Their eyes locked on their destination, they kept on walking towards the Big House, eventually barely noticing the campers that started following them. Until they were steps away from the front porch of the Big House and a sword was held threateningly in front of them, making them stop._

 _The campers were quick to encircle them, no good intention written on their faces._

 _Percy managed to get a look at the person holding the sword. He was smaller than he was, with caramel honey blond hair tied in a man bun behind his head, the excess falling to his shoulders. A firm jaw line, and he looked to be around fourteen years old. But what caught his attention were his eyes, bright sea green eyes. Like his own had once been, before they dulled over with time._

 _"Who are you and what do you want? I swear I will skin you alive," he threatened with a much too deep voice that what he had expected from such a young demigod._

 _Percy wanted to answer, even simply move to show who he was in the hope of being recognized. However, someone was moving through the crowd around them before he had the chance. Someone important by the way everyone was moving to let them pass. He squeezed Annabeth's hand, feeling grateful when she squeezed right back._

 _They were together, that was all that mattered._

 _"What's going on, Jake?" the demigod coming through said and when he recognized the voice, his knees almost buckled from beneath him. He almost fell to the ground because_ after all this time?

 _Annabeth cocked her head towards him, and Percy did too. Absently he used his cybernetic celestial bronze arm to push away at the sword that kept on hovering in front of them as he turned towards the incoming demigod. A small yet endearing smile took over his face, his eyes softening up at seeing him again._

 _"These two look like trouble," Jake —that's what his name was— told the incoming demigod as he moved his sword slightly, angling it towards them still but not in front of them like he had before. Still at the ready._

 _Then he came out of the crowd. His eyes sparkling electric blue, his blonde hair shaggy and messy, nothing like what he remembered of him. The scar over his lip nearly invisible, except he knew it was there, and he was wearing an orange t-shirt, instead of a purple one._

 _"Trouble?" Jason asked as his eyes set on Jake and then shifted to them. Widening as he recognized the two people standing in front of him. Taking a step back as he gasped as he looked at two demigods that might as well have just come back from the dead. "You are so right," he whispered._

 _Then Jason's eyes met with Percy's and there was clear recognition. Percy pulled his hoodie down gently and slowly, so to not alert the demigod still holding his sword on them. The demigod crowd started whispering, and let's be honest, he had expected it._

 _There was no need for introductions, everyone seemed to know who he was, and who she was and he didn't want to stand there any longer, so he walked towards the son of Jupiter and wrapped his arms around him. Glad when he hugged right back at him._

 _"Fourteen years…" he whispered in his ear, and by the sound of it, it was clear he was close to losing his cool and perhaps even shed a few tears. Percy nodded absently, and just kept on hugging. "Gods, I missed you," he said as he then pulled away from him and simply got a good look at him, which caused for Percy to avert his eyes._

 _There was a_ lot _he needed to explain before those eyes stopped looking at him with questions._

 _"Jason?" a feminine voice said as she too made her way through the crowd that only seemed to be getting bigger by the second._

 _Her hair hadn't changed, that was the first thing that occurred him as he saw her again, and she still looked as beautiful as she had before._

 _Piper didn't hesitate to run to the one persona that had been the first to welcome her to her new home. The one person that had helped her through as much as she had helped her. The one person she had weeped for months and years…_

-.-

His jaw clenched as he thought about that day, his nose crinkled up as he snarled softly. _The calm before the storm_ , like _this_ was just them same. Simply a calm moment of peace where things could be figured out before the bad things happened. Before they lose more than they thought they could.

"That doesn't too bad," Tony said. "I mean except that _Jake_ guy, it was all fun and fluff."

Percy looked at him with an expression that told him to cut it. "Worst has yet to come," he assured him. "This part, is where you can understand why you found me in an abandoned warehouse all those years ago."

-.-

 _Twenty seven of March._

 _A date that will forever be imprinted in his brain for what had occurred._

 _In between those weeks, he had figured out a few things about what had changed in the course of his missing years. Like the fact that a city had been build on the northern side of the camp, that there were over a thousand people living in whole establishment put together. Every go and deity had been dedicated a cabin, and Jake was indeed his half-brother._

 _It had seemed that Poseidon had gotten into an affair weeks after his disappearance…that's gods._

 _And against contrary beliefs, he loved his brother. After getting over their first eye to eye meet in front of half of camp, they had grown closer. And yes, they had the occasional disagreement and public fight, but wasn't that between all siblings. In the end they always managed to reconcile once they were alone in their cabin._

 _It happen in the morning._

 _He woke up, after Jake bumped on his bed for what must have been the tenth time. When he did wake up, he stood abruptly, which ended with him hitting his head on the top bunk. It was still dark outside and he was thoroughly confused as to why he was being woken up in the middle of the night at two am —if the clock on his nightstand was anything to go by._

 _"Follow me," Jake had told him and it was immediately from then that he realized that his voice didn't sound right. But he had just woken up and he wasn't really concerned about the sound of his voice, but rather,_ where were they going so early?

 _He should have questioned the voice immediately, but he hadn't, and it ended up costing him everything._

 _He blinked the sleep out of his eyes, and although he was scared, and confused to the core, he followed his brother out of the cabin."Where are we going?" he asked of him._

 _"Just you wait," Jake replied, and again, his voice was off but he didn't think twice on it. As he looked ahead of them, he saw he was heading for the forest, which was not good for them._

 _He followed silently, until they reached the border line of the forest. "It's dangerous in there, especially at night," he warned Jake, but he didn't listen and continued walking and then he was in it. Being the responsible older brother than he was, he followed him to make sure he didn't get hurt._

 _They walked deeper and deeper in until all he couldn't manage to see a building of the camp, not the roof of the Big House or of the temple. It was dangerous. He turned to look at his brother, perhaps tell him it was better if they went back, but the words died in his throat when he found his sword resting on his collar bone. A slight movement and it would graze._

 _He looked at his brother in utter confusion not for the first time tonight. Had he been brought all the way out here just for_ this _? So he could be killed or at least so he could try to kill him. He had known his relationship with him was shaky, but he hadn't realized it was bad, at least not_ this _bad._

 _"What are you doing?" he asked carefully, fully aware that he could be killed with a flick of the wrist. And although it wouldn't his first time having his jaguar vein cut, this time there wasn't a primordial deity making sure he lived through it, and after surviving_ that _, he was not going to waste his life like this._

 _"I'm sorry," his voice sounded normal then, and it was at this moment that he realized that the different tone was something he should have been more cautious about. Jake's eyes seemed to clear, even though he hadn't even realized they had been foggy in the first place._

 _Jake took a step towards him, and Percy was quick to step back, barely avoiding being sliced through. Something caught the light of the moon as they moved. Something resting at Jake's wrist. A silver bracelet, with two hammers crossed embedded onto it. At the time, he hadn't realized what it had meant, but he did later on._

 _"Jake, what are you doing—?" he tried asking again, but there was no time._

 _Jake brought back the sword, and he saw the last attempt to overpower whatever was inside him, as he hesitated before swiping at his head. Had he not ducked in time, he would have been decapitated. But the first failure at attempted murder didn't stop him, the opposite actually, it encouraged him. His sword came down in an arch, and Percy rolled away from it. As he did, he grabbed Riptide and uncapped it, holding it in front of him in a defensive manner._

 _They fought, but Jake was no match for him, no one at camp was anymore. Yeah, sure, he'd been held prisoner for a decade and a half, but part of that time was spent being of personal entertainment to the very deity that held him. Meaning he'd be forced to against monsters or against him —as had Annabeth— for his entertainment. Small thing he imagined Tartarus didn't take into account was that he was always improving. Every time he fell and managed to get up again meant he was getting stronger, but still no match for the primordial being._

 _Even with his skill, there was something in him, possessing him, fighting his battle and being able to hold his own against him. So he switched it up, since disarming wasn't working, then he thought the hurting him enough would make him stop at least. Perhaps due to pain or exhaustion, either would have been fine, which was better than the alternative which was killing him._

 _After what might have been hours and it might have been since he could see a thing of light breaking through the tree line, he managed to disarm him, his sword ending at the base of his neck after, keeping him in place unless he wanted to kill himself._

 _And he should have known better, because that's what he did._

 _He grinned at him, and he could see the hollowness in his as he did so. The desperation and the panic in them and in that one moment of his distraction, Jake finished himself off quickly. His hand shot up, grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled it towards himself._

 _It pierced his neck before Percy could even understand what was going on._

 _It was followed by a blood curling scream and a small mutter of a, "No," coming from Percy as his brother dropped dead on the ground. He fell next to him and he stared at his brother's lifeless sea green eyes. Then there were breaking twigs, and branches being snapped as someone walked over to them from being. His eyes closed, and tears escaped, as he used two fingers to close Jake's dead eyes._

 _Then the sound of a weapon being unsheathed. "Percy, stand and leave your sword on the floor," Jason said from behind him._

 _He turned around and saw him standing there. Jason looked barely awake, and he wondered what it was he was doing, in the middle of the night, dressed in his pjs, standing there, with a sword in his hands pointed towards him._

 _Then he looked back at his brother, at the sword in his hand, at his_ hands _…And saw what it was Jason was seeing._

 _"Jason, this isn't what it looks—" he tried in vain._

 _Jason cut him off immediately. "Just drop your sword," he said more sternly as he took a step toward him._

 _He let his sword fall from his grip, whatever he needed to do to prove that this was all a great misunderstanding. "Jason, please, you have to believe me—"_

 _"Please just stand up and show me your hands," he said, and the sternest was gone from his tone, instead replaced by sadness. His face contorted as if he was hurt. He stood up, showed he had no weapon on himself. Jason kept his sword level as he crouched down and felt for a heart beat through all the blood gushing out of Jake's neck. "What did you—?" his sentence was cut short by a bright flash of gold and then they weren't in the forest anymore._

 _They were on Olympus._

 _In the throne room._

 _He saw his father standing in front of him, his face emotionless, hard as stone. Confusion all around him but all he could focus was his father's face. He felt someone, probably Ares, grab his arms and shackle them with celestial bronze chains._

 _"Dad—" he tried, his voice breaking because so much was happening around him and he wasn't understating how it had all went so wrong so quickly._

 _"You just murdered your own brother," Poseidon cut him off. "You're no son of mine."_

 _There was something in his eyes, Percy caught it, but he wasn't sure what it was, but at least he had known it was there. A betrayal of emotions._

 _His mouth opened, he wanted to argue that it hadn't been him, that he didn't mean it. It had been an accident, but then there was something leaving him. From deep within. He felt his senses weaken and his powers draining. Ares pushed him behind his knees and they buckled, forcing him to fall down._

 _He looked up to see all of the Olympians assembled in front of him, all sitting in their respective thrones, but what scared him more, were the immortal demigods standing at the feet of their thrones. All looked confused, and some even mad. Except Jason, he looked down sideways, not managing to once make eye contact with him._

 _"It wasn't me—" he said, but Zeus didn't let him finish his sentence._

 _"Silence," he commanded, his voice booming throughout the throne room. Everyone stopped talking at once."Right now you have no right to speak, and you won't have one until we ask for your opinion. Is that understood?"_

 _He was shook, down to his very core. He didn't reply, and if Zeus was going to say something, he didn't get the chance because Annabeth did first as she took a step forward. "What's going on?" she asked of the King of the gods._

 _Zeus stopped trying to talk to Percy, instead raised an eyebrow to his brother, urging him to say the words. "Trial of execution," he said, and Percy heard the faintest strain in his tone, and damn it he might have been the only one._

-.-

"It was chaotic, and there wasn't really much order," he told them as he came back from it. "Annabeth left after they concluded my sentence."

Apparently they got confused by what he had been saying, because Wanda then asked, "Sentenced you to what?" He was glad for her Sokovian accent, for some reason, it kept him rooted to the now rather than the past he was reliving.

"Death," Percy replied to her, but it was for everyone to hear. "But it wasn't so simple. They let me go —dropped me from Olympus…I don't known how I survived that fall, but I did. After that I ran, I ran as fast as I could."

"But there's but," Sam quipped in, and dam right there was.

"But they caught up to me," he said as an answer to his question. "The Hunters of Artemis are the best at their job, and I had them hot on my trail. Some are as old as centuries others, just decades, but they were simply more experiences at picking up my trail than I was at covering it. I lasted six months out there in the wild, just trying to stay alive."

-.-

 _He was tired beyond anything and he screwed up._

 _He'd found this abandoned house in the middle of the forest, and he was so damn tired, that he didn't care whether they were a mile away or an hour away or whatever. If he didn't sleep he was going to knock himself out of exhaustion and then that would be it. For good._

 _He curdled into himself as he tried to get some sleep, but as soon as he had closed his eyes, the feeling in gut warned him that there was something that was about to go horribly wrong. And he knew better than to ignore it. He checked outside the window for any sign of the hunters, and he saw one, he wasn't meant to but he saw her, sitting on a tree, her bow sticking out of the leaves._

 _Quickly he stepped away from the window and took cover as something was sent through the broken glass. Too late, he realized it was an explosive arrow. The blast sent him crashing into the opposite direction against a frail wooden wall, which he tore down with his heavy weight._

 _As he stood back up, he saw a couple of hunters file into the room and he got ready for combat. An arrow was quick to pierce his right thigh, but it didn't hurt him nearly as much as it should have, and without much thought he yanked it out, his eyes deadly as he spotted the hunter who had shot him._

 _His hand shot forward and he grabbed her bow, yanked it out of her hands and then gave her a solid blow to the head, knocking her unconscious in one blow. He then heard footsteps, which meant that more hunters were approaching, and he didn't want to miss his chance, so he searched hunter for any spare weapon he could find that wasn't arrows._

 _Throwing knifes and a bowie knife in her left boot._

 _He waited for the footsteps to get closer, but when they didn't a horrible feeling settled into his gut. He went back to check out the window, to find a sign that didn't surprise him as much as it should have. The hunters had formed a perimeter around the house, blocking him inside with no way out except for fighting them directly which would no doubt end in a painful death._

 _His heart started racing at one hundred._

This was the end of the line.

 _The hunters all knocked arrows into their bows and aimed at the house._

 _"Fire," he herd a familiar voice say._

 _There was the whistling sound of arrows in the air, before they struck. Then the whole house rocked with explosion on all sides. A fire started. A fire which could eventually kill him, if something else didn't before. He'd been knocked down, and wood upon wood was sitting on top of him, and it was getting hard for him to breathe because of all the smoke._

 _He heard the thunder in the sky, and when he looked at it, he saw his doom as the clouds darkened and then rain started pouring. More thunder, but no sign of lightning yet. But he knew it would be coming any second now._

 _"Move out," he heard his cousin, Thalia, yell over the rain at the same time that Artemis had said, "Retreat."_

 _It stung to hear her voice. If there had been one person he would have never thought would turn against him, it was her. But after Annabeth had betrayed him he should have started to expect it from everyone. It didn't mean it hurt any less when he heard her._

 _He tried following her order, even though it hadn't been for him._ Move out _or_ retreat _. The fires around him, as well as the rubble on top of him, made it so he couldn't. Then the first lightning bolt hit the ground, next to the house. And there had been nothing more scary and terrifying for him yet. Not Tartarus not_ nothing.

 _He was sure his heart might fail before the lightning hit him properly. Perhaps that would be nicer. But it didn't. The lightning kept on coming, like the god responsible was taking his time into showing him and_ preparing _him for what was to come._

 _He was soaked to the bone, but he quickly realized that the wetness on his cheeks wasn't only due to that, but that he was indeed,_ crying _. He hadn't cried in a long time, and last he had, it had been down in hell. Perhaps it was fitting that this was how he would go._

 _Perhaps it wasn't._

 _But he accepted it and suddenly he wasn't so afraid anymore._

 _He accepted that death was close._

 _"You are right." He turned around in one frantic motion to see it standing there, black as night with scythe in hand. Just like he remembered it from that quest all those years ago. He had freed it, now it was here to take his soul, and he was_ okay _with it._

 _"Will it be quick?" he asked of it. The lightning kept on circling the house, he was sure that if he simply waited for it then it was worse. So he distracted himself as he remained stuck under all the rubble. As he waited for his death to come._

 _"I cannot tell," Thanatos told him slowly. "You'll just have to wait, and I with you."_

 _He nodded, and that was that. He looked up at the sky, only to see the King of the gods staring back down at him. A grin on his face as he aimed his master lightning bolt down at him. He let go of the knifes he held in his hands, closed his eyes and held hid head high._

 _And then it hit him._

 _…_

 _He woke up days later._

 _There was on weight on him, and when he looked around himself, there were only ashes and cinders. Nothing else. The house had been blow to nothing, and all around him, there was a huge landmark, a circle of ash symbolizing where the bolt had hit. His clothes were singed, burned to a crips, but somehow, he knew he was still alive._

 _The sun was shining bright into his eyes._

 _"I guess that wasn't the right time." He sat up, finding it didn't_ hurt _, and turned to see Thanatos standing there again._

 _There was only one question that plagued his mind at the moment. "How am I—?"_

 _"Alive?" Death guessed when Percy codlin finish the sentence. He nodded. "It wasn't your time."_

 _He squinted, frowned down at himself and then around him. "But the gods are going to try to kill me again," he said to Death. He knew they were going to try as soon as they knew he wasn't dead._

 _"The gods think you dead," Thanatos told him. "And so do the camps you come from. You must make sure it remains that way," he advised him. He sure as hell was going to do just that._

 _But… "You're not going to tell them?" he questioned Death yet again. Not that he wasn't grateful but…wasn't his job to make sure no soul escaped his embrace._

 _Death shrugged, and it was creepy. "I don't see why I should," he admitted to Percy. "Think of this as a payed debt for freeing me. Although…it won't be long before my master notices you are not in his domain."_

 _A debt payed… "Hades?" he asked, confused as to who Death was talking about._

 _The god in front of him nodded. "That's him," he said. "Now, I must go. As entertaining as this was, I've got souls to reap." In a flash of light he was gone._

-.-

"I tried getting back on my feet after that," Percy said. "But it was hard. I had the bowie knife, but that was about all the weapon I had. Riptide had been taken during the meeting on Olympus, after my fath— _him_ , severed the connections I had with it."

"Your father's a dick," Tony commented, and he wanted to agree. Actually, he _did_ agree with that. He wasn't going to say that to them all though. "I'm thinking he could give mine a run for his money." He knew what he meant.

He sighed. "He wasn't always," he said bitterly. "There was a time I actually considered him a father…Anyway, then I heard about the briefcase and…" he gestured to them all.

"That was depressing," Sam said as he leaned back in his chair. Percy simply just looked at them, he was waiting for the lashing out. He knew it would come, he was just waiting for it patiently.

"Wow," Tony said, and he grabbed the glass of bourbon he had given himself a long time before. "Why now?" he asked after having taken a sip. He sounded on edge, like he was questioning a kid and he was angry, but he didn't want to seem angry. Not yet anyway.

"What do you mean?" he asked him, even though he knew exactly what he meant.

"Why tell us now? Why not before?" Tony elaborated, his tone getting harder by each word he spoke. He downed the glass. He was definitely way past drunk by this point.

Percy swallowed, his finger traced the rim of his own glass. "Tartarus _is_ rising," he said solemnly. "You said you'd help, and I want you to know all the facts."

It didn't seem like the right thing to say. Tony wasn't smiling, heck he looked more depressed than he usually did, and that took effort. "So you wouldn't have told us if he weren't?" he asked angrily, and truth was, he wouldn't have. Heck he might have gone to his grave without ever sharing it.

"I don't see—"

He was interrupted before he could say much more. "We've been a team for three years, and now you tell us that your father is an immortal god?" the billionaire questioned. He was drunk, Percy was going to give him that, he was too, so it could be forgiven. "After three years! A team is built on trust—"

"Like you trusted everyone while you built Ultron?" Percy asked defensively, which was, again, the wrong thing to say.

Tony's eyes flashed dangerously, and he stood. "Don't you dare swing this on me. This is about you keeping this big of a secret from all of us! It could have compromised us a thousand times overs and you know it."

Percy stood too, he stood so he could get into Tony's face since he was inches taller than him. "I had my reasons, some which you will _never_ understand."

"Of course," Tony said annoyed. "You were running, right. Looks like that girl —Annabeth— was right. You are a coward—" That hit closer to home than he would have expected. He sat back down on the chair, he knew a lost battle when he saw one.

He wasn't expecting Clint to step him by cutting him off, "Tony!" It was a warning.

"Go ahead, Barton," Tony said bitterly. "Defend him. Because I'm betting you already knew all of it. And why wouldn't you, you're best buds, aren't you?" It was not just anger, that was clear, like it was not just he liquor talking. It was both of those ingredients that were making Tony a little bit…aggressive, and Percy could understand.

"He did know," Percy said, his voice quiet as compared to Tony's increasing tone. "And so did Natasha for the matter." He saw Tony open his mouth, possibly to yell at them further but he stopped when he said. "I asked them to keep it themselves." This again, didn't seem like the right thing to say. Nothing, he realized, was the right thing to say at the moment.

Tony only looked angrier. "So you trust two assassins with this, but no one else?" It was rhetorical, and long gone were the days where he would have answered back just for spite. He knew his place now, he was grown up, and…it wasn't right to talk back at the moment. "So what? You three know everything about the other, dark secrets, red ledgers…everything?"

"Tony," Steve broke him before he could say something he was actually going to regret. His voice sent off a warning. Percy looked at the Captain, and wondered not for the first time how it was that he could maintain such a facade of calm in situations like these.

Tony didn't yield for anyone, let alone for Steve Rogers. "You're taking his side? Cap, this kid has kept something this big from us for three fuming years, he told them…but not the rest of us. I'm not saying I want to know every single secret, but the basics would have been nice. Don't tell me you don't feel the least bit betrayed."

Percy envied how Steve kept his cool. "Even if I do, there are other ways of coming to this conclusion," Steve said.

"No, Tony's right," Percy said instead. "I should have told you. All of you, form he beginning. But I was scared because, yeah…I guess I am a coward in this—"

Steve shook his head no. "You're not a coward, Percy—"

He held his hands up, in a surrendering kind of way. "I am," he said and then he turned to look at Tony. "There, I've said it. I'm a coward. They wanted to kill me, and I ran. I found you guys and I was selfish because I put you in harm's way. I tried forgetting my past, I ran from it, and I'm still running from it because I can't even bear the thought of making terms with it. I'm weak that way—"

"You're not weak," Clint said, interrupting him. "Stop lowering your self esteem."

"No Clint," he told him. "I ran from it all and by not telling any of you the full story, I kept running. I buried it before I could come to terms with it because I was afraid. And I've kept it buried for four years. Now this primordial is rising and Annabeth popped back into my life and everything is going down hill. I'm sorry I didn't tell you guys, I really am. And I apologize that I put my own needs before letting you know. I thought if I just forgot about it, it would eventually go away. I got proved wrong and I hope that you'll forgive me for keeping this from you. But I was afraid, afraid of reliving it and afraid of your reactions."

That was all he was going to say, and when no one offered to say anything in return he picked up his glass and walked away. Clint made to go after him, but Steve grabbed his arm and kept him back, signaling to let him have some time alone. He was going to need it.

Once he was sure he was out of earshot, Steve turned to Tony. "That was out of line," he told him as Tony was taking a seat back down on his chair. He was cooling off.

"Oh come off it, Cap," Tony told him as he poured himself the last of the bourbon.

They left, slowly, first Steve, then Sam and Clint. Wanda too along with Vision.

Natasha leaned on the table as Tony took a sip, his eyes were set in the direction Percy had gone off to. "Steve's right," she said, but Tony couldn't find it in him anymore to glare at her, she elaborated for anyone else who might have been on his same page. "He just told you something big. The least you could have done was keep this conversation for another time. And if you really _must_ know, he told us —or at least me— about this, in the moments bomb's timer was set off. Saying if he was gonna go, he wanted it to be known. And the only thing we knew, was that he was half god."

"Whatever," he said, and she must have been pleased with his answer, because she bid him good night and then left as well.

Rhodey walked over to him, put his hands on his shoulders and squeezed a little. "You'll have to apologize…?" Ir remained like a question almost.

Tony gulped down the last of the liquor, then set the glass down. He stood up, put on his suit's jacket, straightened it out. "I will," he said as he too left the room, Rhodey in tow.

.

 ***sweats nervously* that was long and honestly, I don't even know. That is what happened and the scenes that were 'fast forward-ed' are going to be explained in more details in upcoming chapters. I know this might have been boring, I mean, 8,600+ words of story time, not the best, but I can promise some action in the next chapter, trust me, things are going to juice up.**

 **And I'll be happy to let y'all know, this isn't a typical- guy-is-rising-and-we-have-to-fight-to-kill-him story, it'll have a twist to it and this might have as well been a spoiler, I don't know. But yeah, get ready for it.**

 **So yeah,**

 **Like it? Tell me.**

 **Didn't like it? Tell me.**

 **Good? Tell me.**

 **Not good? TEEELLLL MEEEEE.**

 **I need to know.**

 **Criticism is welcome any time any day at this door. Trust me.**

.

 **Stay tuned people, and you'll see why XD**

 **Hunter**


	8. Meeting Old Friends

**Hey there...**

 **Feeling good? Feeling bad?**

 **Science exam tomorrow, so me is in the bad department XD. But not into panic mode...not yet.**

 **This chapter is shorter than the previous one, bcs like I said, the other one was way beyond the boundary, and it was a MISTAKE for the most part. So yeah, this goes back to the 4,000 words mark XD, which is way easier even for me to write and make.**

 **Like I had promised in the previous chapter, this one finally contains some sort of action, and in my opinion it's cool, but hey, ppl are different. So the only thing left to say is, enjoy XD**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _"Tony," Steve said, his voice sending off a warning._

 _But the billionaire didn't yield, he rounded on Cap. "Now you're taking his side as well? Cap, this kid–"_

 _"I'm not a kid!"_

 _"–has kept something this big from us for three fucking years, he told the two spies but not us. Don't tell me you don't feel a least bit betrayed."_

 _"Even if I do, the way you're acting is over the top," Steve said._

 _"Over the top?" Tony asked him. "Fine–"_

 _"No," Percy interrupted. "You're right, I should have told you. But I was scared, yes I'm a coward in this–"_

 _Steve shook his head, "you're not a coward Percy–"_

 _Percy held his hand up. "I am," he said. "There, I've said it. I'm a coward. They wanted to kill me, and I ran. I found you guys and I was this selfish that I put you in harm's way. I tried forgetting about my past, I ran from it, and I still am running from it because I can't bear with making terms with it. I'm weak that way–"_

 _"You're not weak," Clint said. "Stop lowering your self esteem."_

 _"No Clint," Percy told him. "I ran from it all and by not telling any of you the full story, I kept running. I buried it before I could come to terms with it because I was afraid, beyond anything of what I'd become if I did come to terms with it. And I've kept it down for the past three years, then this primordial is rising and Annabeth pops back into my life and, everything is going down hill now. I'm sorry I didn't tell you guys, I really am, and I apologise that I put my own needs before letting you know. I thought that if I just forgot about it, it would eventually go away. I got proved wrong and I hope that you'll forgive me for keeping this from you. But I was afraid, afraid of reliving it and afraid of your reactions."_

 _When no one offered to say anything, he picked up his mug and walked away, Clint made to go after him but Steve grabbed his arm and kept him back, signalling to let him have some time alone. He'd need it for sure._

 _Once he was out of earshot Steve turned on Tony. "That was beyond the line."_

 _"Oh come off it, Cap," Tony said as he poured himself some more scotch._

 _"Steve's right," Natasha said and after Tony glared at her she elaborated. "He just told you something big, the least you could do was keep this conversation for another time. And if you really must know, he told us or at least, me about this, in the moments before a bomb detonated. And it was nothing as specific as this, only thing we knew is that he was the son of Poseidon."_

 _"Whatever," Tony said as he moved to leave._

 _"You'll have to apologise," Wanda said._

 _Tony looked over his shoulder. "I will," he said._

 _._

 **X-X-Occurrens Amici Veteris-X-X**

(Meeting Old Friends)

~.~.~.~

5th December

~.~.~.~

Percy heard the alarm before he was awake, which was a weird sensation to be completely honest. He didn't have time to fully dwell on that.

'There is an attack on Central Park,' Jarvis' robotic said through the walls. 'Tony is calling up the Avengers, to meet on the party deck in five minutes.'

Percy grinned at the voice, he had been quite pissed when Tony had changed it to Friday since Ultron had 'killed' Jarvis and whatnot. But he'd then been ecstatic when Tony had found a way to install Jarvis back up and that horrible shrilly voice of the female AI was gone.

The demigod sat on his bed, staring at the wardrobe across from it, imagining the suit he always wore when he fought alongside the Avengers. He wondered whether he was needed or wether they wanted him to be there.

His thoughts were soon pushed aside as he heard a knock on the door, he groaned as he stood up and scurried over to the door, throwing a shirt on as he went. He was surprised when he saw Tony himself standing there, a mug of coffee in his hands.

When they made eye contact Tony grinned and handed him the mug which Percy took eagerly. "We need you," he told Percy.

The person in question raised his eyebrows. "You do?"

"Jarvis sent up some camera footage and yeah, it's your stuff."

Percy groaned. "How many?"

"A lot," Tony deadpanned. "And... uh, Steve, Nat, Wanda and Sam are off to Nigeria so yeah, it's only a few of us left."

"Thor?"

"Oh, he left yesterday night," the billionaire informed him. "His father called him back."

"Oh," Percy said.

"So are you coming?" Tony asked, this time in a hurry.

Percy took a sip of the coffee. "Are you still mad?"

The genius rolled his eyes. "I couldn't be even if I tried. Now suit up."

"Okay, but, that's Cap's line. Don't steal it."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

The younger looking man grinned as he nodded and closed the door behind him, turning to look at the wardrobe he was looking at only moments before and grinned as he set down the cup on his drawer and opened the wardrobe, taking in the sight of his suit.

He rolled his shoulders and started changing.

His suit was badass.

It consisted of a black half-face-mask, which left his eyes uncovered and many might say that was a problem. A problem which got solved by the goggles obscuring his eyes from the outside although from the inside he saw better than anyone and it worked a little bit like Iron Man's own helmet. It would be able to tell him and warn him of possible hostile coming his way, it worked as a great source of entertainment while waiting, except he couldn't watch Netflix, that was a bummer.

He proceeded in putting on a black thermo shirt that was cut specifically made for him, the sleeves ending just below the elbow on both arms, one arm was because it proceeded on being the prosthetic that replaced his real one, the left forearm was left uncovered for him to put some steel guards on, engraved in intricate patterns which he had personally designed that resembled the waves of the ocean.

Next came the body armour which consisted of two layers of protection. The first one was a modelled to fit his body, plate of steel that served to keep anything from reaching the skin beneath. And the came the thin but yet robust black leather piece of armour which he buckled on. Three buckles on the sides of his torso the highest below his armpit and the lowest above his hip bone.

He wore black cargo pants that ended tucked in combat boots. A gun holster on his left leg and his sword's scabbard over to the right side. The gun holster were two loops encircling his thigh and then one straight vertical strap connecting them in both the front and the behind, attached to the one loop that encircled his waist and held the sword scabbard up.

The next piece was a cloak which he clipped into place on his shoulders. But it wasn't really a cloak, more like a black hood that covered his head and cast a big a and solid shadow over his eyes and some sort of cape flowing behind him which was more for show than anything really. The hood and the cape weren't one, they were only connected by some straps, all he had to do was pull the cape and it would come off. He mostly did that while fighting, because it always managed to be totally ripped into pieces and sometimes even lost...

He made his way up the elevator silently, his nerves starting to understand he was very close to a battle. Something in his gut told him something was going to happen, something he wouldn't like. But he couldn't say no to his team, especially since he dragged them into fighting these kind of threats in the first place. When he reached the party deck he saw that Clint, Vision and Tony were already there, all suited up and ready.

They quickly made their way to the quinjet and Clint took the wheel whilst Tony handed a com to everyone around. Percy had gotten over his fear of planes and flight in general, after all Zeus didn't know he was in that plane and therefore wasn't targeting him anymore.

"Secured on my own channel," Tony said. "You can talk to Jarvis through this."

Percy took his own and inserted in his ear, careful not to pinch his eardrums too hard.

"So what's the plan?" Contrary to public beliefs, it was easy and clear to talk through his mask and he had Tony to thank for that.

"Same as always," Tony said. "Attack."

"Ha ha," Percy said sarcastically. "Very funny, now really. What's the plan?"

Vision sat in front of Percy after a turbulence hit the plane. "From what Jarvis has said we can expect heavy numbers of varying monsters, hellhounds, telekhines, and apparently a hydra has been spotted as well."

"Just what we need," Percy muttered, then he looked over at Tony. "Did they have to leave today?"

"They had planned it this way," Tony answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Lucky them."

"I wouldn't call them lucky," Clint said from the pilot seat. "They're all the way in Nigeria cutting off more of Hydra."

"Oh don't remind me," Tony whined.

Percy was confused. "What?"

"I've got this presentation later and I'm not looking forward to it."

The demigod snickered. "Ah," he said. "That's what you get for being Tony Stark, genius, billionaire and Iron Man."

"Yeah, you know sometimes I wonder why I told the public it was me," he said.

Being the mature person he was, Percy stuck his tongue out at Tony who returned the gesture.

"Everyone ready?" Clint asked from up ahead. "Cuz' we're about to touch down."

The three sitting Avengers all stood and walked over to where the ramp would lower in just a few seconds. When it did they didn't hesitate to jump off, or at least, Percy didn't hesitate to jump even thought it was still a few metres in the air. Iron Man and Vision easily flew out without worrying to break a leg or something.

Percy broke his fall with a roll and as he did so he managed to grab the hilt of his sword and he unsheathed it as he got back on his feet.

The Avengers fought together and one might say they fought like demons but other may say they looked like they were dancing because they were in such synchrony that it was easy to think that they had rehearsed it times over to make the final perfect product.

-.-

When the small group of teenagers –one might say– arrived at Central Park they were baffled to see that the Avengers were already there and... managing to cut through them because upon closer inspection they were indeed using the correct tools. The masked man was using a celestial bronze sword and occasionally a gun which fired imperial gold bullets. There were arrows littering the floor and they could see that the head was made of celestial bronze. Then there was the weird red guy using a laser beam coming from his head that effectively cut through the monsters and then there was Iron Man, using energy repulsers and lasers to cut through the flesh of monsters.

The group of six demigods that had volunteered to take care of this soon got over their curiosity and decided to help the Avengers that were taking out what they were supposed to take out. It was their job to rid the world from monsters, not the Avengers'.

Each demigod grabbed their fighting partner and covered each other's backs like the Avengers were doing, although there didn't seem to be any difference in their way of fighting except that the demigods were fighting with medieval weapons whereas the Avengers where fighting with more modern weapons and they worked as group to fight whereas the demigods worked in pairs.

-.-

What seemed like hours later the monsters had thinned down to only a couple, and the hydra was still there, spewing fire and clawing at anything that was in its way. The demigod-Avenger hadn't noticed the addition of demigods that had joined the fight therefore he was completely oblivious to them all. Vision and Clint had though, and in some situations they had ended up helping one or two of them from getting skewered. Percy grabbed Iron Man and started telling him what to do.

"I'm going to cut off the head," he said. "And without hesitation your going to blast your energy beams at it, then they won't grow back."

"Grow back?" Tony asked since they had never really fought anything like this.

"Cut off one head, two more grow back," Percy told him and although Tony couldn't see it he knew he was grinning, that was HYDRA's motto.

Tony nodded. "Okay, I got it. Stay safe kid," he added with a wink although no one could see it because of the helmet.

"I'm not a kid," Percy said as he started making his way towards the hydra.

Tony chuckled as he took flight and watched Percy attack the first of the nine heads of the monstrosity which was what the founders of HYDRA had called their organisation after. It was sick, the way it resembled the truth.

He wasn't paying attention as Percy cut off the first head and in no time, two were growing back. "Oh shit," he muttered.

"No, really?" Percy said through the com. "Please pay attention for the next ones, I'm not about to spend my time killing hundreds of hydra heads."

"I've got you," Tony assured.

"I hope you do."

-.-

It was down to one head when Percy started to feel the strain in his arms and the adrenaline surging away.

Just a little longer, he told himself.

But he was tired and there was nothing that he'd say and would change that fact. His arms were begging and screaming for a release and to be fair, so were his legs. But he needed to keep going, just one more head.

The tail of the hydra managed to get a solid hit at his midsection and it sent him flying through trees and then colliding against a bench. Vision took the matter in his own hands and severed the lash head off with his gem stone and stark sent a repulser beam which made the monster disintegrate into dust.

Percy's mask had fallen off and his googles had cracked and as he used his hands to pull himself up he pulled them off, pressing to his ear com and communicating with the others. "Mask fell off and the goggles shattered. Oh and my limbs are dead tired–"

He stopped when he heard the string of a bow being pulled back from his right, the tip of a imperial golden sword resting on his left shoulder. He raised his chin as he felt it slide underneath his neck as the person holding it got him in a headlock.

"Let him go."

Percy looked up to see Tony descending with his arm raised, palm facing the person behind himself. He saw Vision from the corner of his left eye and saw him get ready to charge with his gem stone and Clint notched an arrow in his bow and pulled the string back, aiming at someone behind Percy, possibly the one with the bow.

"You've got no idea what you're dealing with," the person holding Percy in this head lock said, the female Percy recognised as someone who he once called a friend.

"Reyna," he greeted.

"Jackson," instead of a nodding of the head like he had to greet her, she inched the sword closer to his neck and the blade scraped his neck cutting into it and drawing a drop of blood.

Clint took a step forward at seeing it. "Let. Him. Go," he snarled.

Percy looked at Clint thankfully before he grabbed Reyna's arm and in a flash had her flying over his shoulder and onto the ground. In the process he managed to get a grip on her sword and once she landed held it threateningly at her neck, his knee pushing on her sternum and trapping one of her arms.

He looked around at the much closer weapons from the other four demigods, one –Annabeth– remained where she was, her dagger sheathed and merely looking, not even trying to make eye-contact with Percy or any of the Avengers.

"Let me go and no one needs to get hurt," Percy told the demigods that were once his friends.

"We can't do that," Leo said. "I'm sorry, Percy."

"Are you?" the demigod in question asked bitterly. "Because last I remember neither of you seemed that sorry to see my ass kicked by the gods! Don't lie to yourselves."

Jason lowered his sword. "There's a prophecy," he said. "It includes you."

This seemed to get Percy's attention if only for a moment before he remembered what they might try to be doing. "I don't know wether you're stalling, or something, but I'll have you know when I care."

The son of Jupiter stepped forward, his sword still hanging in his limo arm. "So now you don't care?"

"That shouldn't come as a surprise," Annabeth said. "He's a coward."

Percy's anger got the better of him, he looked down at Reyna. "Sorry for this." He smashed the hilt of her sword on her face, knocking her out cold. The response was immediate, Frank let go of the arrow and a small ball of fire hurled towards him. He easily dodged both and held his sword pointed at Annabeth's neck. "You've got, absolutely no right to say that!" he said, his voice rising by the word.

"Percy, maybe it's better that we go," Tony said through his suit. "I feel a storm coming up."

The demigod in question looked up at the darkening clouds and noticed that as always, Tony was right, the sky was darkening which only meant one thing of two things, and he feared it wasn't the good one.

"And I don't think it's ours," Tony added and Percy agreed. "He left only this morning, I doubt he'd come back so soon."

Percy nodded his head without looking at Iron Man, his eyes still set on Annabeth before they averted to Jason. "You say a prophecy, huh?" he asked and Jason was mistaken when he heard interest in his voice. "Well, good luck."

Before any of the demigods could respond to that, Iron Man shot forward with super speed and grabbed Gladiator off the ground and flew out of the park.

Clint lowered his bow with a sigh. "They do everything so dramatically," he complained. "I thought Tony was enough, then Perce comes along and becomes Tony two point o. I swear, one day that kid is gonna be the death of me. How on earth am I supposed to get back?"

The demigods exchanged a look as they watched The Vision walk to the archer. "I suggest taking the jet back."

"You're no help," Hawkeye told The Vision. "Legit though, everyone can fly, except me..." he was heard as he started to make his way towards the jet.

Seconds after the air cackled with energy, the five demigods looked at each other with rolls of their eyes and worry. They knew exactly what was going to happen next, anyone who had felt the presence of the god of the sky would know.

The clouds darkened up ahead, and it suddenly all turned cold, the hairs on their bodies standing on end as the air started to smell like ozone. The clouds started clashing but no lightning came down. Not until just one, only one did, and in its wake a god stood, looking as powerful as ever. His weapon of power in his hands, ready to smite the 'traitor' to ashes.

Zeus looked more moody than usual, he wore his usual electric blue shirt and his beard was shaved into a neat cut. But his eyes were as stormy as the storm he had brewed up above. Grey and crackling with energy, zaps of energy dancing around his body and the weapon he held clutched in his right hand.

The five demigods were smarter than to just stand there, they took a step back and looked at him wearily. They knew how unpredictable and easy to anger gods were, especially gods like Zeus. But of course they were never going to say that out loud, it wasn't worth the risk.

The king of the gods looked around, his eyes scanning the surroundings as he searched for the one who had escaped him once before. He would be damned if he let him escape again. He would not be made the laughing stock of Olympus, not now that war was starting to brew against the very deity that controlled the deepest parts of the underworld, the very deity that held all those monsters captive and...dead.

But where was Perseus?

"Where is he?" he snarled, his question directed at the five demigods standing there before him. They were tinier than him, he was over ten feet tall, more than out numbering their height.

Jason was the one to speak up, having already taken on something similar years back when he had stood up against his father and helping Apollo, his half brother. "He got away."

A tree went up in flames before anyone saw the movement. The god had strikes a lightning bolt at one tree because of anger, it had lit on fire on contact. "He got away?" Zeus hissed, repeating what his son had said.

But the son of Jupiter didn't back down, of apologise, he stood his ground, even against the king of the gods, his father. "Yes," he said, his voice even and not giving anything away. "He got away."

Zeus did not seem happy by that answer. He pointed around as he spoke. "Five, of the greatest demigods could not detain one lone demigod."

"He wasn't alone," Jason said, and he knew he shouldn't have, but it was out, so he might as well continue. "He was with the Avengers, and even if he weren't. We were shocked you know? I had heard you had him killed– actually, that you killed him, so–"

"So he survived," Zeus said, keeping his anger inside but feeling it bottling up, his blood starting to boil beneath his skin. "And you're not going to start spreading the rumour. Chiron may know but I don't want any one else knowing of this, am I clear?"

The five demigods nodded, knowing they didn't have another choice, they couldn't just say 'no' to the king of the gods. Percy had once and he had paid by losing six months of his life and a little more than that. You don't just say 'no' to gods and have no retaliation from them.

"And," Zeus wasn't done. "I want you to find him, and bring him to me, is that understood?"

This time it was hesitant and Jason spoke up once again. "But there's a prophecy–"

"I don't care about the prophecy! First I want him kneeling before me, have his powers stripped. Then and only then will he be allowed to walk this Earth freely and help you in your quest."

"He's never going to help," Annabeth said. "Not if you force him, he'd rather die than be forced to help the gods, to help us."

All eyes turned to her. "What are you talking about?" Reyna asked.

The daughter of Athena took a deep breath. "I found him a few days ago...and he made it clear where he stood. He's not coming back, not if we beg him not if we do whatever. Heck he kicked me out as soon as he saw me. He might help, but that will be for his own skin...and the Avengers."

Zeus reeled on her, the electricity coming back and zapping harder than before. "You've known where he was and you didn't tell us?"

Annabeth nodded. "He asked me not to tell you, and I promised it."

"That's treachery!" Zeus boomed, the clouds crashing and thundering at his mood.

But the daughter of Athena wasn't scared off by the sky god, she had faced something much more terrifying, something she did not relish to remember. "I've betrayed him before," she said, her voice level and her will trying really hard not to have it show any of her internal struggles. "I wasn't going to do it again. I won't be doing it again, never ever."

Zeus wanted to say something and it seemed like it wasn't going to be anything nice, but then he claimed down, the clouds parted up but remained grey. "That doesn't change my orders," he said. "I want you to bring him to me, and then we'll figure out what to do with him."

"Father, if I may," Jason said, stepping towards his father, sheathing his weapon, feeling like the dangerous part of the conversation was over. "If you gave me a chance to talk to him, to give him a chance, that he joins of his own free will, then maybe the whole 'kneeling in front of me with his powers stripped' won't be necessary."

"Aren't his powers already stripped anyways?" Leo asked as he too put away his weapon.

Annabeth shook her head. "No– well yes. Poseidon disowned him, that meant that he took away most of his powers, but he still has some, the ability to heal most likely and some other ones."

"How do you know?" the son of Hephaestus asked, confusion basically written on his face.

The daughter of wisdom waved him off. "It doesn't matter how I know," she said before she turned to Jason. "What does matter is that you manage to convince him to join our cause, and have the Avengers help us too. Because if the prophecy is going to come to pass, we will not make it without them."

Zeus looked at Jason and raised his hand. "You've got one week to convince that bastard, one week," he made sure Jason understood it was 'one week'. "After that I'm sending the gods after him, and no kindness. It'll be shoot first and ask questions later."

He didn't give the demigods the chance to respond to that because a moment later he was flashing away and the immortal demigods shielded their eyes as the god flashed away.

-.-

When they touched down on Stark Tower's party deck they heard the thunder. Percy watched with narrowed eyes as the clouds darkened, right above Central Park, the thunder continued to crackle until one giant lightning bolt hit the ground. He held his breath before he saw a jet flying out of the zone, and he let it go, knowing that Clint was safe and out of danger-zone.

"I have to leave," he muttered as he realised what had just happened.

He started walking inside and Iron Man's head turned towards him. "What?" Tony's voice was metallic through the helmet.

Percy didn't bother to stop and explain, he made his way inside. But Iron Man was having none of that. "Where are you going?" he asked as he flew straight in the tower, behind the disowned demigod.

"I have to leave," Percy repeated in the same mutter.

The younger man continued to walk and Iron Man had to stand in front of him and grab his shoulders to stop him. "No you don't. And you won't. Look, I've got this scholarship thing now, and I swear, if I come back and you're not here I am going to scout the whole world until I find you. And when I do I swear I'll beat you up so hard you won't feel yourself for months. Now, swear to me you won't go anywhere?"

He held out his pinky finger and Percy looked at him with an expression that said, 'who do you think you're talking to?'

"Promise me," Tony urged. "You didn't spill all your secrets yesterday, just to leave today, I won't let you." He then looked around. "Jarvis, make sure that Percy Jackson, here, doesn't leave the tower before I come back."

The mask slipped off his face and he grinned at Percy who was glaring at him. "That is not fair. Tell him to let me go. It's dangerous for me to be here, Tony. The gods could literally blow this place to bits by merely thinking about it."

Tony stuck his pinky finger out for him again and with reluctance Percy shook it. "Fine, but make it quick, and tell Jarvis to let me go out."

The billionaire merely smirked and grinned at the younger man. "Jarvis keep Percy here, inside the tower, all costs."

Percy had a priceless expression. "You son of a"–

"Hey," Tony warned. "Don't let Cap hear that."

.

 **I am never sure on how to end a chapter, like ever! It's annoying really.**

 **So you know, review and tell me about it ;) or you know, follow this story...maybe even favourite it... ;) ;o**

 **And now that, that is out of the picture, CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH OF A FREAKING GOD LIN MANUEL MIRANDA IS? **

**Pls?**

 **If you want to talk about that then pls pm me? Pls, pls.**

 **Like, Hamilton fan right here. We can talk as fan to fan you know? It's going to be fun...**

 **I don't have a preview of the next chapter, :/, sorry about that, but I might upload it when I do... of I might as well just wait two weeks and upload the actual chapter... whatever seriously.**

 **Remember to review–**

 **Oh and– a few weeks ago I got this guest review telling me that Steve served in the First World War, and um, no he didn't. So children, sit tight as I take you on a history lesson :)**

 **First World War it was the allied forces, (Belgium, France, Britain, Russia etc) against the German empire or smth, (Germany, Austria-Hungary), and here's where the Americans came into play, at the very end, or at least the troops did, the weapons were already in since a long shot. Oh and also, Adolf Hitler was just a soldier, a private :), so no 'Nazi' thing.**

 **Second World War, that was Germany against everyone, legit. (Well not actually). And it was all started because Hitler was somewhat afraid of the Jewish religion (don't quote me on this, I'm not sure wether what I'm saying is 100% true or if it's complete BS) so he started to spread his fear and in no time, boom, he had an army who was keen to annihilate the Jewish religious.**

 **So now, if we can remember about the movie Captain America: The First Avenger, he's fighting against the 'Nazis', Red Skull and his army are called 'Nazis'. Now where did the nazis come in? In the Second World War.**

 **Oh and also we could simply look at the dates. First World War happened 100 years ago, legit, whilst the Second World War happened...oh yes, 70 years ago.**

 **How old is Cap told to be? 70!**

 **Weeee, Ol' Cap served in the Second World War.**

 **(I don't know if the above was by any means offensive, so I say it now, I didn't mean for it to be and I apologize)**

 **.**

 **So yes! Review, follow, and talk to me about the god of musicals, Lin Manuel Miranda.**

 **Shit Hamilton is so good. I gtg bai.**

 **Hunter**


	9. Missions and Compromises

**Mistakes were made...**

 **I don't know why, and maybe neither do you, but is there a reason why there were only three reviews since the last chapter? Like please guys, I spend my time for both you and I to manage to write at least 4,000 words for each chapter, and I update this story every two Sundays, the _least_ you could do is tell me whether you liked it or not...**

 **On a happier note! I got my reports two days ago, and I am proud to say that I am really proud of my results having gotten 53 points out of 56. This has by far been the best report I have gotten- second best actually. But the best since I moved to an English school. But school is not yet over, it still goes on for one week and half ...**

 **Mistakes were made for this chapter, the first 1,000 words or so were meant to be in the previous chapter but they weren't.**

 **So, yeah, enjoy mon ami...**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _He held out his pinky finger and Percy looked at him with an expression that said, 'who do you think you're talking to?'_

 _"Promise me," Tony urged. "You didn't spill all your secrets yesterday, just to leave today, I won't let you." He then looked around. "Jarvis, make sure that Percy Jackson, here, doesn't leave the tower before I come back."_

 _The mask slipped off his face and he grinned at Percy who was glaring at him. "That is not fair. Tell him to let me go. It's dangerous for me to be here, Tony. The gods could literally blow this place to bits by merely thinking about it."_

 _Tony stuck his pinky finger out for him again and with reluctance Percy shook it. "Fine, but make it quick, and tell Jarvis to let me go out."_

 _The billionaire merely smirked and grinned at the younger man. "Jarvis keep Percy here, inside the tower, all costs."_

 _Percy had a priceless expression. "You son of a"–_

 _"Hey," Tony warned. "Don't let Cap hear that."_

 _._

 **X-X-Et Compromissis Indulgent Missiones-X-X**

(Missions and Compromises)

"Try to remember the kind of September. When grass was green...wake up, dear. Say goodbye to your father," a woman said, she looked to be in her fifties to a young man sixteen– maybe seventeen years old, laying on the couch.

A pianoforte and other furniture alike was in the room, giving it the idea of a clean and rich house. Flower pots here and there with beautiful blossoming flowers. Frames and pictures on the drawers and stands showing pictures of family.

Another man entered the living room, this one seemed older than the woman, maybe in his sixties and looked alike the young man. "Who's the homeless person on the couch?" he snapped, clearly unpleased.

The teen stood up groggily and obviously ticked off. "This is why I love coming home for Christmas. Right before you leave town." Sarcasm was clearly laces in his words as he switched his glance to both his parents.

The woman switched her eyes to her husband. "Be nice, dear," she said kindly, this was a woman with great patience. "He's been studying abroad."

"Really?" The man didn't seem impressed. "Which broad? What's her name?"

"Candice," the young man replied nonchalantly.

The older man looked at the younger version of himself and it looked like it was the first time they made eye contact. "Do me a favour. Try not to burn the house down before Monday."

"Okay, so it's Monday," the young man said, sarcasm still present, he looked to be making decisions in his mind as he talked. "That is good to know. I will plan my toker party accordingly. Where're you going?"

"You're father's flying us to the Bahamas for a little get away," the mother replied, she seemed to be understanding of her son's sarcasm but yet tried to ease the tension between the two males.

The man nodded along as he fixed a few things in the living room. "We might have to make a quick stop," he added.

"At the Pentagon. Right?" the old teen guessed. "Don't worry. You're going to love the holiday menu at the commissure."

Howard wasn't amused, he walked to the door. "You know, they say sarcasm is a metric for potential," he said, although it seemed like he didn't like what he was saying. "If that's true, you'll be a great man some day. I'll get the bags." And then he left the room through the door.

The mother approached her child, gently squeezing his shoulder. "He does miss you when you're not here. And frankly, you're going to miss us. Because this is the last time we're all going to be together. You know what is about to happen. Say something. If you don't, you'll regret it."

The young boy looked straight ahead. "I love you, dad," he said and he seemed to be genuine. "And I knew you did the best you could."

Then something bizarre happened, light turned on and the room started to transform until it was all gone and there was nothing behind it but the wall of the podium. Tony Stark walked nonchalantly onto the stage.

"That's how I wished it happened," he said to the audience. "By merely augmented retro framing or BARF," he made a confused face when he said the word. "God, I need to work on that acronym... An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus to clear..." he seemed unsure on what to say, "traumatic memories. It doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the airport, or the things I did to avoid progressing my grief. Plus the six-hundred-eleven million dollars for my little therapeutic experience."

He paced on the stage as continued rambling about the project. "No one in their right would ever funded it. Help me out," he didn't seem to be alright mentally, something was occupying his head, and it might have been the fact that he had just fought mythological monsters and helped a dear friend escape _gods_.

"What's the MIT admission statement. To generate, disseminate and preserve knowledge, and work with others, to bring to bear on the world's great challenges. Well, you and the others. And quite as it kept the challenges facing you the greatest mankind has ever known. Plus, most of you are broke. Also, I rather you work. As of this moment, every student has been made an equal recipient of the Inaugural September Foundation Grant. As in, all your projects have just been approved and funded. No strings. No taxes. Just...reframe the future. Starting now. Go break some eggs."

The audience in front of Tony erupted into cheers and applauses. Most people there, students and parents of students, stood as they clapped in approval. Everyone was gassed up by this new revelation, but why was Tony so kind as to find all these students and people? That question remained unanswered but they weren't going to pry, the billionaire had just funded them.

-.-

Tony made his way along a corridor surrounded by people, some were his own guards trying to keep the paparazzi away and at a distance but one teacher man managed to get his attention at some point.

"That, uh... That took my breath away," he said and he seemed really surprised. "Tony, so generous, so much money. Wow! I...out of curiosity and... Will any portion of that grant be made available to faculty? I know, gross, but hear me out. I have got this killer idea for a self cooking hotdog. Basically, chemical detonator embedded–"

Tony wasn't taking any of that crap, after the horribly annoying day he had, he was not ready to hear that bull– "The restroom this way, yeah?" he asked one of the people surrounding him as he started walking in the direction.

The teacher man answered. "Yeah," he said before he tried again to tell Tony of his idea. "Embedding in the meat shaft–"

A woman came up to him and started talking over the teacher. "Mr. Stark, I am so sorry about the TelePrompTer. I didn't know Miss Potts has cancelled. They didn't have time to fix it."

"It's...fine." But as it really? "I'll be right back."

He managed to pry himself away from the mob of people that was following him and reached an elevator, a lone woman of African ethnicity stood there, and she did not offer any type of acknowledgement like a fan of Iron Man slash Tony Stark would. But she did offer small talk, or so it seemed.

"That was really sweet, what you did for the young people," she said, but her features weren't sweet if anything.

Tony was confused before he registered what she had said fully. "Oh they deserve it," he said. "Plus, it helps ease my conscious..." and had him think about something other than there were _gods_ on top of the Empire State Building.

The woman nodded in understanding. "They say, there's a correlation between generosity and guilt. But, you got the money. Break as many eggs as you like. It's brilliant."

Tony was starting to feel uneasy, this woman was hitting soft spots. "You going up?"

She didn't take her eyes off him. "I am right where I wanted to be."

If he wasn't confused before, he sure as hell was confused now. "Okay, okay," he said. "Hey! I'm sorry. It's my occupation hazard." Not the right thing to say.

"I work for the State department. Human Resources. I know it's boring. But it enabled me to raise my son." As she spoke she pulled out a picture of a young man and showed it to Tony. "I'm very proud of what he grew up to be. His name was Charlie Spencer. You murdered him."

Tony seemed to sway a little as she heard those words escape hear mouth, but she wasn't done yet.

"In Sokovia," she explained. "Not that it matters in the least to you. You think you fight for us. You just fight for yourself. Who's going to avenge my son, Stark? He's dead. And I blame you."

-.-.-.-

December 6th

-.-.-.-

Tony trudged into the dining area, late as always, and went in the direction of the kitchen. Clint was talking animatedly with Natasha, supposedly exchanging stories of what had happened the previous day –how they were awake so early, Tony had no idea. The Vision was sitting next to Wanda, his arm draped around her shoulder as her head was hidden in the crook of his neck.

He hadn't heard all the details of the scuffle they had fought, but from what he had understood, it hadn't gone the best.

The night before, when he had arrived back from the presentation he hadn't been the best of moods, after having a mother blame you for her son's death, he wasn't sure anybody could be. He'd been full of thoughts and his mind seems to able to explode any moment, so he did the wise thing, he went to his room and tried to get some sleep. He did not want to be the cause of why the Avengers would fight.

But his mind had failed to acknowledge one person, Percy.

The day before he remembered seeing the demigod sitting on the couch furthest away from the other talking Avengers, and Tony had the suspicion it had everything to do with the events of the day. He remembered seeing the man looked troubled, really troubled.

The ding of the toaster brought him back to life and with a yelp he took them out and set them on a plate, but it would be a very long time to when he actually ate them…

"Where's Percy?" he asked out loud, his eyes directed towards Clint and Natasha, the two Avengers who knew him best.

They looked confused. "What are you talking about–" the former was saying when the elevator dinged open and a sweaty looking cap came out, as if he had been running which would not be weird, considering his body shape.

"Hey," he greeted. "Anyone seen our demigod?"

"He's not a demigod anymore–" Clint was saying before he stopped. "Wait, what?"

Steve frowned at him and then looked at Tony for an explanation. Tony was close to arguing about being blamed for it before he realised that Cap probably just wanted to know if he knew anything, being his tower and all.

"Jarvis, check the tower and tell me where Percy is," Tony ordered his AI.

'On it, sir,' the voice replied and after a few seconds it gave the reply, 'Sir, I have checked the whole tower for Percy, he seems to not be here.'

The team exchanged a quick look before Tony spoke again. "At what time did he leave?"

'I can bring up security footage of the lobby, sir.'

"Do it," Tony said and just as he said it a big hologram screen appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the room.

The time read 02:36am. Percy was dressed like a commoner, a leather jacket with a hoodie underneath which he had pulled over his head, jeans and sneakers. On his shoulder a football bag which seemed filled up pretty good with essentials –Tony thought to himself.

The video started playing and Tony was annoyed by how he seemed so at ease, his face blank form emotions and his steps steady and firm, his direction clear. He stopped once he was at the door and looked around himself, and something leaked through his blank mask, something like longing, before it was gone and he opened the door and got out. Soon, he was out of the shot of the security camera.

The hologram disappeared and Tony cursed. "We have to find him," he said immediately.

Clint and Natasha were swift to stand up and the former said, "Obviously, on his own he's just going to get himself killed."

'Sir, sorry for the interruption but there is a message for you,' Jarvis' voice rung through the room. 'Actually, it's a security breach, your elevator is being used by unauthorised personnel.'

"Who is it, Jarvis?" Tony asked, a hint of worry in his voice as he looked at the doors of the elevator.

-.-

Jason had asked Frank to go with him. Honestly, he could have asked Leo and maybe that would have been a better option for getting in, but Frank was a better option to get out. He could literally turn into an eagle and jump of the building, whilst Leo couldn't. So in case this went really wrong, they had a way out which would result in no one's death, especially not Jason's or Frank's.

And also, Frank was praetor of New Rome, this was a diplomatic mission in a way, the count-leader of Camp Half-Blood and co-leader of Camp Jupiter together off to recruit and hopefully form an alliance, because if the prophecy would come to pass…they'd need this alliance more than anything.

The 'getting inside the tower part' was pretty easy, they simply walked in through the front door. They had dressed up in black suits and whatnot, so they looked like any of the other agents strolling in and out of the lobby. Before they had walked in though, they had 'kidnapped' two agents and stolen their badges, used the mist to change the ID picture and then clipped them in their own suits.

But as they stared at the elevator, they were already questioning their plant, wondering if it was going to work or wondering if they should have just let Zeus send gods after the missing son of P– no, after Percy Jackson.

Jason quickly pushed that thought aside, he had seen Percy do it, he had seen him kill his own brother, but there was something about that whole scene that felt…off. Percy's attempt to say it wasn't him seemed sincere, and genuine– but he had seen it with his own eyes. But he didn't agree with what his father had sentenced his friend to, it was cruel and evil, and if he could prevent him from being _hunted_ again, he would try his best.

So they scanned their badges in front of the elevator and the doors dinged open pleasantly. The two agents got inside and they were annoyed by the fact that the elevator soon filled up with other agents and workers. As the doors closed, a silent message went through the two demigods.

"Now!" Jason yelled and Frank got the message.

The son of Mars pressed the 'keep the doors closed' button and as he turned around he flung his arm with his fingers curled into a fist. Two agents were knocked to the floor by that act alone and as they hit the ground Jason directed two small bolts of voltage in their direction and they were out cold.

Jason didn't even bother to take out his sword as he let electricity run through his veins and as he punched agents right and left, they were electrocuted into the next hour– nothing fatal. Frank didn't seem to be needing the voltage as every punch he sent under way seemed to knock the breath out of them and eventually the second one would knock the consciousness out of them too.

In a matter of five minutes the elevator was littered with the bodies of twenty agents in shiny suits, with their hair sticking out in weird directions or bloody noses and black eyes.

The two demigods looked at each other before they approached the button pad and looked at it.

"I hate technology," Jason muttered as he took out the paper with the instructions Annabeth had so kindly conjured up for them, having come here already and knowing where what was pretty well, and then add her ability to memorise…

Luckily she had written in Greek and he was able to read through it fairly easily and get on with what they were doing and possibly reach their destination before the Avengers found out that they had put two dozen trained men out of action.

He pressed down the numbers of the floor that would take them to the Party deck, which is where the Avengers hung out when they were together or planning out anything. And that's when Jason realised something, they had no idea and no way to be certain that Percy or that any of the Avengers would be up there.

But then he remembered what she had said, ' _Most likely up there._ ' So this was their best bet to find at least one of the Avengers, after that…only time would tell.

The elevator asked for authorisation, and when Jason scanned his badge it signalled a red cross. 'Unauthorised.'

Frank unclipped his own badge and scanned it in front of the scanner. The same thing happened and the two demigods groaned out loud in synchrony.

Jason looked up at Frank and a silent agreement went through them, 'They'd come this far…they might as well…'

Frank's arm turned into one of an eagle and with the talons he grabbed the scanner and tore it apart, Jason didn't waste time to fry it down with electricity, overriding their system by too much energy.

Red lights started blazing in the elevator, and they both knew they had a limited amount of time to continue, without wasting any of it, Jason punched in the floor number and let out a breath of relief when the elevator continued its ascension upwards, red lights still blazing and alarms sounding.

-.-

The doors opened and Tony immediately tended, the metal brackets around his wrists immediately recognising the sign, and two hands of the Iron Man suit wrapped around his own, flashing dangerously with energy.

Natasha and Clint's hidden pistols were unbuckled and aimed at the intruders, Wanda's red magic started swirling around her threateningly and Vision's gem stone started to glow with power. Cap curdled his fists and stepped forward.

Jason's sword was sheathed, he knew a fight could be imminent but he opted into showing he didn't want to fight, but he wasn't foolish enough to go into 'enemy' territory uninvited. A golden shield strapped to his left arm and slightly lowered in front of himself. Frank similarly equipped except he held his bow and arrows shouldered and a spear strapped to his back, a shield strapped to his arm.

Rage boiled up inside of Tony, these were demigods, the very same that had fought them yesterday, the very same that had driven Percy to run away. In a move of blind anger, he raised his hands simultaneously and shot two repulser beams. Both demigods, with years of experience, raised their shields and deflected the energy with the metal.

"We just want to talk!" the blonde one said, and Tony stopped his attack, leaving the two of them to hesitantly lower their shields from their faces.

Tony immediately said, "Jarvis, run facial scans!"

In a matter of ten seconds two screen, much like the one that had displayed Percy's escape, appeared in front of Tony, but yet at a certain length form each other that Tony could still see the two demigods and everyone else in the room.

"If you wanted our names, you could have just asked," Jason said calmly, the reaction they got was expected. "We're not here to fight."

"Obviously," Steve said unimpressed. "You wouldn't have come here only in two of you were. What do you want?"

Jason's arm strapped to the shield fell to the side of his body, it seemed as though things had calmed down a little bit.

"All we want is to talk to Perseus Jackson," Frank said calmly, following Jason as to where he put his shield.

Tony laughed out loud, not a kind laugh. "He's not here," he said.

"What do you mean? Where is he?" Jason said, his head quirking towards him.

What Tony had failed to see what that Clint seemed just as pissed as he was. The assassin clicked the safe of the gun he was holding open, still raised and aimed at the son of Jupiter.

"What do you want?"

It seemed as though Tony wasn't the only one to have failed to see Hawkeye's anger, because when Jason saw the pistol open and aimed at him he failed to cover the spark of fear that leaked through his eyes before it was gone as soon as it had come.

He opened his right hand –the one without the shield– and showed he had nothing in it, slowly he led it to the inside of the shield and pressed something. The shield strapped to his arm seemed to break apart and fold down on itself, before all that remained was an electric blue bracelet around his wrist. The slowly he raised his arms above his shoulders.

"We're not here to fight," Jason repeated, showing no distress at having a gun pointed at him. "We just want to talk."

"Then talk," Wanda said in her thick Romanian accent. "Talk. And you, big guy, put the shield away."

Frank exchanged a look with Jason before he too pressed something inside of his shield and it folded down into a bracelet, this one seemed to be crimson red instead of blue.

"Is that good for you?" Jason asked her to which she replied with a simple nod.

But Clint still had his gun aimed at Jason. "What do you want?"

"Talk."

"Then talk," he said, his voice just as threatening.

Natasha valued the situation and seeing as though he seemed to be exaggerating, she put her hand on the pistol he was aiming and pulled it down, meeting resistance for the first second before he gave in and lowered it.

Jason eyed the pistol in his hand for a moment before he looked back at him in the eyes. "Maybe we can do this more formally–"

"No!" Tony said, snapping. "You don't get to do that. You put– how many? Twenty of my employees out of commission– what did you even do to them? You short circuited my elevator– which is going to cost to repair, it's not going to repair itself. And most of all, you would have killed Percy yesterday, weren't it for his skills to get in and out of tricky situations! So no, excuse me if I'll enjoy watching you stand there and explain yourselves. How old are you even, kid, seriously?"

Jason's calm was hitched up by the way Tony was speaking, he couldn't help but feel anger build up inside of himself, his anger issues much like his father's.

"First thing," he said, not letting his anger get the better of him, Tony was right. "We're not kids, and we've probably seen more than all of you put together have. And that's just me getting things straight."

"Jason," Frank said sternly, glaring him down, sons of Jupiter were known for easily loosing their tempers. "I assume Percy has told you about out…um, world?"

Tony nodded his head along with everyone else, but it was Steve to talk back. "What about it?"

The son of mars stood up straighter and straightened out his suit, understanding that they would really be standing, and then he unborn it open, revealing that underneath, he wore a purple t-shirt with the words 'Camp Jupiter' printed on it and ancient laurels around it.

"He may have told you about prophecies leading the quests, directing the questers in the right direction–"

"What's your point?" Natasha interrupted as she asked.

"If you'd let him finish," Jason said. "You'd know he was about to say that there is a prophecy for what is happening right now. And he along with all of you, is part of it."

"Elaborate, please," Steve said as he crossed his muscular arms in front of himself.

But Jason shook his head, his mind going back to the objective of this so called mission. "That is not why we're here, it's not to talk about the prophecy, that may come in the future. For now all we need is Percy–"

"So you can kill him?" Tony interrupted as he took a step forward. "Because that's what it led to the other time. What was it…? Oh yes, Zeus blasted the house he was hiding in to bits! Excuse me, if we don't want to even call him to alert him of you even coming here. This isn't you wanting to talk to him, it's a death sentence."

Jason closed his eyes, this man was making his blood boil in anger under his skin.

"Just let me explain," he said as he opened his eyes. "You'll understand that we mean him no harm–"

"Yeah right! This coming from the very guy who got him banned–"

"That was not my fault!" Jason shouted. "Him getting banned and hunted, was not my fault. Now, you can either let us find him, so we can talk like civilised people or you can wait one week and feel the wrath of my father and the rest of the Olympians as they search every inch of the earth for him! And let me tell you, they will find him. They found him before, they will again. He's only one man who's lived thirty years. The gods have lived for millennia, and if the gods don't find him, Tartarus will for sure! And then we're all doomed!"

This had stunned everyone to be quiet and consider they're offer. And not if for the tone of voice Jason had used then surely for the electricity zapping around him in the moment.

"Jason," Frank said sternly. "Calm down."

Jason looked confused for a moment before he looked down at himself and noticed the bolts of energy running around him. With one shaky sigh he made them dissipate and then looked back at the Avengers.

"Well he's gone," Tony said recklessly. "He left this morning, and we don't know where he went."

"Ah," Jason sighed. "We're too late…"

"We've got a week Jason," Frank said. "We'll find him."

But Jason wasn't so sure about that anymore, would they find him in time. He had left hours before they had come, for all they knew he could be on his way to the other side of the planet right now.

The son of Jupiter shook his head slowly. "It took the Hungers six months o find him before. Now older, stronger and smarter, it'll be impossible."

This statement made the son of Mars chuckle. "Impossible?" he repeated with a smirk. "Everything's always been impossible. We've always managed it, we can manage this too."

Jason through about what Frank was saying and after a moment of his mind on it he relied on him and turned to the Avengers once more. "Do you have any idea of where…of where he could be? A house long away from here–"

"In Alaska maybe?" Frank added.

-.-

His mind was so clouded with thoughts that he almost missed the exit from the highway. That may have not sounded like much, but it would if the next one was in fifty kilometres and it would make the trip over one hundred kilometres, and he was already in a rush one might say.

He had gotten a train west which had taken five hours to arrive to the station he needed, and then after that, another train through the Canadian coast and once he had arrived at the border between Canada and Alaska he had taken yet another train which had taken him north towards the Arctic Ocean and after that, once the railways stopped he had rented a jeep car and started driving towards Barrow, where he owned a little cottage overlooking the Arctic Ocean.

The fact that his– um, Poseidon had disowned him did nothing to make him hate the ocean. He still felt connected to it, although much less than he had before the disowning, but yet, he couldn't make himself hate the water. Even after having it be put against himself because of the primordial, but water had always been a constant in his life. Even before he knew he was the son of a Greek god, he'd always loved the beach and the water, and even now, when his father had disowned him and stripped him of most of his powers, he still felt a connection.

That's why when he had to choose a place where to get his own little house, he hadn't hesitated to choose something close to the ocean. He knew he wouldn't have taken anything close to New York for his little 'safe heaven' but at the same time, if he was going to go on the other side of the country, he might as well go to the land beyond the gods and live peacefully knowing they could never sense him all the way up there, really deserving the nickname 'safe heaven'.

When he finally saw the board signal that he was entering Barrow a grin spread across his face, this was as far away from the gods influence of power that he could think about whilst still staying on land and not in the freezing waters of the Arctic Ocean. He drove for a twenty minutes before he finally saw the little road that led to his owned property directly at the coast.

The road led to a naked forest because of he chilly weather, where trees adorned the sides of the dirt road. That alone was a drive of five minutes which he enjoyed because of the wild animals lurking behind the trees and leaping away as the engine disturbed or startled them.

When the road reached the opening he was met with the familiar view of a two story cottage with a farmhouse yards next to it outlooking the Arctic Ocean. A white field next to the farmhouse were the residential horses were munching from the haystack.

He smiled to himself as he saw the horses' heads quirked up and they galloped towards the side of the fence he was parking the car in.

When he got out he approached them, his bag shouldered and stroked their muzzle.

"How have you been?" he asked them both.

His smile remained, even though he could no longer hear what they were saying to him. That trait that he had received from his father had completely vanished. But it didn't stop him from saving the two horses that were in front of him when their owner thought they were too weak for anything and was ready to have them be put down.

He had been searching for a house which he could call his own when he had come across a barn and almost witnessed their deaths by gun. He had stopped the owner just before he pulled the trigger and volunteered to buy them off him. The owner had laughed at him but after some persuasion he had agreed to it.

"Perseus," an old voice said from behind him and he would have jumped had he not been expecting it.

He turned around with a smile and eyebrows raised.

"Hi," he said as he hugged the woman that resided in this cottage.

Her name was Olivia Sparks, a woman of about sixty years of age, and she was a widow unfortunately, her husband having died around the same time when Percy had been searching for a house in Barrow. He soon found out, that there was no house for sale and when he had met this woman at the cemetery –he'd found himself wondering through graves– he heard of her story and once she had asked what brought him here in the middle of nowhere and she had heard what he was looking for she had offered her house up for him.

He had spent a whole summer working around in the farm with her, fixing fences and roofs around her property, and when he had asked her if he could let the two horses live there she had agreed more than willingly and said that this way she would have company and possibly something to do during the days.

After that one summer was over she had told him to call the place home, so he did. That was hid getaway, his 'save heaven' with the sweetest woman he knew. She reminded him so Michu of his own mother, both in looks and behaviour, and she made the best cookies…

"You've grown so much," she said as they pulled apart.

"It's been two months, Liv," he said as they started to walk towards the cottage's porch.

She chuckled. "Seems liken a life time."

They reached the cottage and when they entered Percy allowed himself to inhale the smell of wood and what he called home.

"I got your message," she continued. "I've prepared your room–"

Percy shook his head. "You knows you didn't have to."

Olivia shrugged her shoulders and then Percy heard the familiar sounds of paws hitting the ground and there came Bill, the Australian shepherd, barrelling towards them. He jumped on Percy and started licking everywhere he could, his tail flapping insanely. Percy was forced to drop his bag and get in his knees as he cuddled the dog and Olivia laughed in the background.

-.-

"Alaska?" Tony asked. "Why would he want a home in Alaska?"

"Because it's the land beyond the gods," Clint said as he eyed the two demigods wearily. "How can I trust that you aren't going to hurt him or kill him?"

"We're not going to kill him," Jason said. "I can swear that on the River Styx, if you want. But if he starts fighting us then we'll be forced to hurt him to defend ourselves, won't we?"

Clint looked unsure. "And how much time did you say you had before, what exactly happens?"

"One week," Frank said. "Well technically less now, it was one week yesterday, but yes. And, if we don't have him convinced by then, Zeus himself will go. And he won't stop until he's kneeling at his feet in his weakest state."

Silence fell upon them so still that a pin drop could be heard. The Avengers looked at one another until the Vision spoke.

"I for one, trust their word," he said monotone. "Breaking an oath to the Styx could mean worse than death. We should help them–"

"Help them?" Tony asked accusingly. "Help them kill him, help them bring them back into something he has no intention in being back in?"

"Tony calm down," Steve said. "Maybe they are right. And them _talking_ to him is much better than the gods _kidnapping_ him against his will. You're willing to give him a choice, right?"

Jason nodded. "But then if he doesn't choose wisely, my father won't."

"And your father is Zeus, right?" Natasha asked although she didn't give him time to respond. "I know Percy pretty well, he could handle them, I say tell them and let them go."

"I say I agree too," Clint said. "But beware, if you so much as give him a scratch, I will hunt hell and heaven until I find you and I'll kill you, slowly and painfully."

Wanda chuckled. "If Clint's got the 'threat' on you, I'm in, I'd be amused watching him follow through with it."

Tony's mouth dropped open. "I don't believe it," he said. "You're just going to sell him out?"

"No Tony," Steve said. "We're not selling him out. This way he's actually got more chance of being safe."

Tony shook his head. "Whatever, but I am not in on this."

"He does have a 'home' in Alaska," Steve said as he turned to the two demigods. "Barrow, house by the name of Olivia Sparks."

.

 **...**

 **How was it?**

 **Please review, really, it helps with the motivation and also by how lengthy the chapters are.**

 **.**

 **Preview of the next chapter:**

 _"It's not for the gods," Jason said quietly. "You wouldn't be fighting for the gods' well being. But for the earth's. Billions of people will die if we don't stop him, Percy. And I clearly says on the prophecy that if we don't work together we will fail. '_ Mortal heroes and half-bloods together shall bond' _, we need to work together!"_

 _He wish he could say he had seen it, truth is, he relay hadn't. The demigod turned Avenger leaped to his feet and in one quick move had Jason pinned against the wall with a dagger –where had that come from?– underneath his throat._

 _"I don't need do to do anything for you!" he snapped._

 _._

 **Hope you're looking forward to the next chapter...**

 **Hunter**


	10. Old Faces Come Back

**Hi! How's life for you? How's your holiday going? Are you having fun? Is the sun killing you like it almost killed me? Now RANT WARING, if you don't care then skip ahead to what you like and be kind XD.**

 **But, I need to open up, or maybe I'll do that later. Mmh... good idea.**

 **Enjoy...**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _Wanda chuckled. "If Clint's got the 'threat' on you, I'm in, I'd be amused watching him follow through with it."_

 _Tony's mouth dropped open. "I don't believe it," he said. "You're just going to sell him out?"_

 _"No Tony," Steve said. "We're not selling him out. This way he's actually got more chance of being safe."_

 _Tony shook his head. "Whatever, but I am not in on this."_

 _"He does have a 'home' in Alaska," Steve said as he turned to the two demigods. "Barrow, house by the name of Olivia Sparks."_

 _._

 **X-X-Vetus Facies Revertemur-X-X**

( _Old Faces Come Back_ )

-.-.-

December 11th

-.-.-

They felt like failures, and that was the least of their problems. They had been travelling– for how many days…? Five! Five days of travelling and they still hadn't found him. It was like there was an invisible barrier doing everything in its power to keep them away from the peak of Alaska.

On the first day they had encountered a pack of twenty cyclops as soon as they got out of New York, and a pack of hellhounds met them at the station of Pennsylvania. They'd taken the delayed of two hours train west, only for it to stop in Ohio because of a rogue pack of Empousa.

After that they had tried the airplane, Zeus' territory, Jason thought it would be a good idea… turns out it wasn't. Wind spirits seemed incredibly naughty and the airplane was forced to land in Nebraska. At least they had been halfway through.

That was before they completely messed up and taken the train south, they were in Oklahoma before they realised their mistake and gotten off to get back towards Nebraska.

By the time they were in Utah, three days had passed, and four had passed by the time they had reached Washington. After that they managed to get a train to get them straight through the western Canadian coast, meeting a good pack of monsters as they arrived in Alaska, forcing them into a night of rest before the fifth day, they had managed to board a local train that had gotten them pretty close to their destination, Barrow. There they rented a car and decided to continue like that until it was late afternoon when they had reached the village on the coast.

They asked around where Olivia Parks lived and after getting some good directions and a solid address number they directed the car towards it.

"Do you think this Olivia Parks is his girlfriend?" Jason inquired as they entered the naked forest, underneath them the dirt path.

Frank shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "We'll probably know when we see him."

"If he even is there," Jason said. "For all I know, the Avengers could have given us a false address or something."

The son of Mars set his jaw forward. "If they did I swear I'm going to decapitate one of them."

Jason nodded along, keeping silent for the rest of a good five minutes as they enjoyed the wilderness around them.

"Do you trust him," Jason asked at last. "Percy, I mean. Am I doing a good thing, by giving him this chance?"

Frank sighed and ran a hand through his close cropped hair. "I don't know. I seriously don't know. I haven't seen him for so long that I'm worried what I might see, who he is…"

"Do you believe he killed his own brother?" the uneasiness was clear in Jason's voice.

Frank scoffed. "You're the one who found him there. You don't believe that?"

Jason didn't answer that question. "Then if you believe that, then why are you doing this?"

"How many people have we killed, Jason? Not only monsters, demigods as well, and how many mortals have been victims of our fights?"

"A lot."

"Are we being hunted because of them?" Frank made him see. "Are the gods whose children we killed hunting us because we are responsible for their child's death?"

Jason nodded. "I get it."

"I don't know whether he killed his brother or not, but he didn't deserve what he got, and surely Annabeth didn't either. With her child and all…"

"Right…woah,"

Jason's moth dropped open as they broke through the trees and arrived at the coast and saw the residence ahead of them. Immediately jealousy bottled up inside of Jason because Percy Jackson had the opportunity to build something like this for himself. A farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, away from the influence of the gods.

He slowly came to a stop next to two other cars that were parked next to the cottage. This alone seemed weird, expect for the fact that Jason knew that one car probably belonged to Olivia Sparks whilst the other one appertained to Percy.

The two demigods slowly got out of the car and Jason's breath hitched as the cold hit him and he zipped himself up to the top, slipping on wool gloves around his fingers as they started to freeze. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Frank do the same as him.

They were just turning around when they heard the door open and someone step out. As they fully turned they were met with the steely gaze if the one and only Percy Jackson.

"What do you want now?" he asked monotone.

-.-

Percy and seen them coming before they had come through the forest. He had noticed the birds flying away, he had seen stags leaping away, and he had heard the sound of the engine firing away. He had known it was either going to be the Avengers or somehow, it was going to be a pair of demigods. Even through he hated them, he had prayed to the gods that it wasn't half-bloods, but it was.

And when he saw the two of them, Jason and Frank, step out of the car like they were arriving home, something that ticked him off.

"Please be careful," Olivia told him as she saw the two intruders. "Don't do anything reckless."

"I can't promise that," he had said as he had thrown his jacket on opened the door.

-.-

Jason was amazed by how much tension there suddenly seemed to be in the air. It was like Percy was a bomb, and Jason and Frank were the igniters, they both knew that the moment they said one word out of what he want to hear, he'd explode.

Jason finally got a good look at the man he once called his best friend and the most powerful mortal being living on the planet earth. He stood higher than himself, six feet two at least and he looked even more battle weary. But the thing that surprised him the most was the peach fuzz beard that had grown on his face in the past five days, dark as his hair and neatly trimmed.

The son of Jupiter was amazed when Percy took a seat on one of the chairs on the porch and simply looked at them, waiting for their explanation.

There were other chairs on the porch, and a table as well, but neither demigod had the wish to overestimate their stay. They would gladly stay standing if it meant that the ticking time bomb in front of them would remain that, a ticking time bomb and nothing more.

It still amazed him, that Percy was really there, standing in front of them, in flesh and bones. He wasn't a ghost, he wasn't even a skeleton, no, he was Percy Jackson, and he looked just as alive as he had when he had seen him standing over Jake, only he looked healthier, and like he had finally gotten the nights of sleep he deserved.

For some reason he seemed ticked off, and it was probably the fact that they were intruding on his life once again, merely five days after having tried to kill him. But they needed him, and he didn't yet realise how much he would be needing them in just a few days.

"I don't know whether you have both gone deaf, or if you just decided to come here and ignore me, but, what do you want?" he repeated his question, his voice didn't betray anything that he felt inside.

Jason was still too stunned to speak, because- he was there, he was there standing– sitting right there in front of them.

"There's a prophecy," he said.

"I heard that before," Percy snarled. "And I'm not interested."

"It's important–"

"And I've told you I am not interested," the Avenger repeated. "Do you want me to repeat that a third time?"

Jason was intimidated to say the least, this man in front of him was nothing like the Percy Jackson he remembered, he seemed much more reserved and controlled.

"The world as you know it will perish, Percy–"

"Don't," Percy cringed.

Jason didn't understand what he meant. "This is us giving you a chance of your own to join, trust me when I tell you that you would not like the second option."

A sick grin appeared on Percy's face. "Well, what if I'm interested in the second option?"

"Zeus hunts you down again," Jason said, his voice getting louder and louder by the the word. "Strips you of everything you are–"

"And then what?" Percy asked calmly, the grin still etched on his face. "He kills me? I thought there was a prophecy that involved me. And what's to say he'll even find me? If gods cross the border to Alaska they're as strong as a demigod. It could be the whole Olympian council and they wouldn't stand a chance against me."

"You've gotten arrogant."

"It's simply the truth," the exiled said. "Which I know is hard to understand, but it's what it is."

Jason sighed and closed his eyes. "Percy, we need you."

Percy barked out a laugh with no humour. " 'We need you'?" he mocked. "That's what you come and tell me after four years? 'We need you'? Where do you get the guts, Grace? You need me? Well I don't care about that, do I? After all, you weren't there when I needed you, when I needed someone, anyone! No, you stood there, looking _betrayed_ as big ol' Zeus decided to hunt the earth for me."

Saying the god's name felt good, he hadn't said one in so long, finally not caring about it, simply saying it out loud, it felt…liberating, like something was lifted from his shoulders and he had less of a weight on them.

"Where were any of you, when I was on my knees in front of him? When they sent me pummelling off Olympus? When he sent the fucking hunters to haunt me down like an ANIMAL? Where were any of you?" They just stood there, not answering, so he answered for them: "Not there. That's the answer, you weren't there. None of you. None. So why on Earth should I be here for you now. The world will perish– not on my watch. But I will never join the gods again, work and fight for them. Risk my life for them."

Jason was stunned speechless and maybe that was also because of a tear trickling down Percy's cheek. There had been so much anger in his words, so much loathing. It looked as though if Percy ever saw one of the gods, he wouldn't hesitate to rip one of them apart.

"It's not for the gods," Jason said quietly. "You wouldn't be fighting for the gods' well being. But for the earth's. Billions of people will die if we don't stop him, Percy. And it clearly says on the prophecy that if we don't work together we will fail. ' _Mortal heroes and half-bloods together shall bond_ ', we need to work together!"

Jason wish he could say he'd seen it coming, truth is, he really hadn't. The demigod turned Avenger leaped to his feet and in one quick move had Jason pinned against the wall with a dagger –where had that come from?– underneath his throat.

"I don't need do to do anything for you!" he snapped.

In one quick motion Frank swung his bow from his shoulder and notched a tranquilizer arrow, pulling the string back and aiming it at the back of Percy's neck.

Percy merely laughed. "Do you really think that arrow could reach me before I can kill him?"

"Don't underestimate your opponents Percy," Frank warned. "You and I could both name dozen of beings that have underestimated us and ended up rotting in hell."

Percy was trapped under that, because in all truth, he wasn't sure he could react in time to actually hurt or even kill Jason. Frank was right, he had no idea how much they had improved in the past three years and he certainly did not want to find out, not now.

But then there was the reckless and angry part of his brain telling him to unleash hell upon the demigod he was holding to an inch of his life. Jason deserves this, he thought, if he hadn't been there no one might have ever found out. But along with that, he knew that was stupid thinking, the gods found out because they were looking, because there was supposed evidence and because Poseidon must have felt it.

Before he could even come to a conclusion he heard the string be let loose and jumped out of the way in time to see it fly past him and embed itself where Jason's head had been mere moments before.

He glared at the son of Mars.

"How dare you come to my home, and threaten me?" he demanded, anger boiling beneath his skin.

"You're not listening to sense Percy," Frank said. "If you don't agree to join us and help us– work with us, the world as you know it will be gone. Everyone I love- You love, will die. We'll all die!"

"Who gave you this address?" Percy asked, changing subject, needing to clear his head before he'd say something he'd regret.

Maybe his anger could be directed towards someone that wasn't there, so there might be less of a risk of him killing one of them. Just perhaps.

"Someone who saw sense," Jason said, getting back to his feet after having docked down when the arrow was fired. "But you shouldn't be mad at them, they did it for you. They know the risks of letting the gods get to you instead."

"Oh, I'm not mad at them," Percy assured him as he took his seat back on the chair. "Just disappointed that they got fooled by the likes of you. Was Annabeth there too or was this all you?"

"It was all us, and Percy, please think about it. How many people are you willing to watch die because you were too pussy to face your past?"

Not the best thing to say.

Percy pointed his finger at the son of Jupiter. "Don't call _me_ pussy, Jason. When you're the one who can't even stand up to puny deities such as gods! Following their every order."

"If they're so puny then why are you hiding in Alaska?" Frank asked before Jason could say something that would doom them. "Why aren't you in New York, facing them head to toe?"

"Simple," Percy said. "Because then the lives of the Avengers would be in the way."

"And what if they use those very lives against you?" Jason asked. "What if they use them to get to you? What then? Are you going to turn yourself in? Are you going to be that cowardly to wait until it gets to that, when you can make sure it doesn't by agreeing now–"

"Leave," Percy said calmly.

"What?"

"Leave," he repeated. "Before I take out my guns, and shoot a bullet through your skull."

Jason understood this time, he took a piece of paper from his pocket and held it out to Percy. The son of Poseidon seemed compelled for take it into his palm. Jason's gloved hand brushing against Percy's mechanical one as the piece of paper was passed to the recipient.

"That's the prophecy. When you read that, if you read that, make your way to Mackenzie Bay, a man will be waiting for you there. It will signal a…truce, if you want to call it that… an alliance in other words, between the Avengers and the gods. Between you and us… In the eve of the thirteenth, your ah… time for doing this in a civilised manner."

"Two days?" he asked annoyed. "That's not a lot of time–"

"We took five days to get here."

"Got it," Percy said before they could say no more, they were mistaken to understand that his calm was sympathy and kindness. "Now leave."

The two demigods had gotten the best bet they could hope for. Yet, so much was left unsaid and so much should have been said. So much that could have helped their cause, but they knew the will of the sea, it was ever flowing in different directions, and it would not be stopped, not by anything.

Both of them were surprised in seeing that even though he had been disowned as the son of the sea, he acted just as much as if he was as he had when he had been. The mood swings were like the current changes', the calm was those nice waves that flapped easily onto the shore and the angry was the tornado the sea brought that would destroy entire cities.

As much as anyone could say it now, they could not deny it, Percy Jackson was the son of the sea god.

-.-

Percy watched the car of the two demigods drive away. He wasn't only ticked off, he was also pissed now, angry to say the least. How dare they come to his home, to his house, and demand that he leave everything behind and put the fact that he was as good as killed by the gods, and go back running to their aid.

The nerve those two had…

He did not want any of it, none of it. Why would he want to be there, to get back to the gods and help them save the world–

With one thought alone, a million more popped up in his head.

He clutched his head in his hands and tightened his grip on the slip of paper that Jason had given him.

What he needed right now was to take his mind off of what had just happened, who he had just seen and what was at risk at the very moment. His eyes landed on the field in which the two horses were happily munching on the hay stack and he knew it was time he took one of them on a ride.

A grin appeared on his lips as he made his way towards the fence. When he was at the gate he grabbed a halter that was laying on it and vaulted over the fence and into the snow covered field and started to approach the two horses.

One was a mare and the other a stallion, he had always hoped that some day they would mate and eventually have a cub, and as he looked at the mare –Eliza was her name– be couldn't help but notice that her stomach was bigger than he had imagined and probably, Olivia had forgotten to tell him something.

His grin spread as he arrived next to them and he pet Eliza's muzzle, the horse hitting her muzzle on his hand. They were both black Dutch Frisians and he was starting to seriously question wether their old owner had some problems in the head, because no one in their right mind would do such a thing.

He pulled the halter around Jerry's muzzle –the stallion– and then, grabbing the loop beneath his chin, pulled him towards the gate of the fence. He brought him into the barn house and racks tacked him up.

He latched the reins around the fence of the porch of the cottage as he went inside to tell Olivia that he was going in town, asked wether she needed him to buy groceries and then switched to his riding boots before he got back outside and mounted the stallion.

As they rode towards the city centre, Percy could only stare at the mane of the horse in front of him as he was reminded of his first equine friend, one who looked much similar, only he had wings and at the time he could understand what he wanted.

He was reminded of Blackjack and his mind went back to the last time he had seen his loyal Pegasus before he had been exiled. The horse had seemed on the edge of his life, and when Percy had asked him why he was sick, what had happened, Blackjack had replied with a simple reply, 'I thought you had died'.

It had broken his heart to know that Blackjack had been getting lethally sick because he had thought he was sick. And when Zeus fired his lightning bolt, he couldn't help but think wether the winged animal had passed away after having heard that he was presumably dead. His only two hopes would be that Poseidon would have taken pity on him and healed him, or that if he did pass away, that he had reached the paradise land for animals, and that he was happy. The Pegasus deserved at least that, and much, much more.

-.-

The slip of paper was still curled up, now it lay on his bed drawer as he lay in his bed, the blankets wrapped around his body, long after dinner and by the position of the moon, not so long until midnight.

It sat there in stillness, but it seemed mocking, and as his eyes landed on it, he couldn't help but remember how Jason's eyes had looked when he had given it to him, full of hope, full of forgiveness, full of guilt.

Percy would be lying if he said that he blamed Jason for what had happened to him. The son of Jupiter had simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time. If he had seen Jason being led by a lunatic-looking Thalia into the woods in the middle of the night he would have probably followed them as well. But the question still remained in his head, what was Jason doing in the middle of the night, looking outside of his window?

He knew full well that if he opened that slip of paper and that if he read the prophecy written on it, he would be torn between it, and he'd actually start considering wether or not to go back to them, and that was something he did not fancy in doing. Call him coward, but he didn't want to face all those faces that he had buried down.

But the piece of paper seemed to be pulsing with energy unknown to mortals. Energy that was compelling him to open that damned piece of paper.

…

He threw the covers off his body and sat up, turned the bedside lamp on and grabbed the paper in his hands. He looked at it once and scratched his peach fuzz, contemplating if he should go ahead and open it. End his curiosity once and for all and possibly sabe the world for a third time.

He took one shaky breath as he did open it…

" _Mortal heroes and half-bloods together shall bond,_ " he whispered as he read the first line. " _And he might be back, but not for long._ "

Did that mean him? Was he the one that would be back, because if it regarding him, it was right at thinking that he wouldn't stay for long, that's for sure.

" _Known for betrayal and murder, the whole ordeal is much harder._ "

It sounded like it was talking about him, or who else had been exiled and marked as a traitor and murderer? Had something happened in the years that he had been 'missing' that he ought to know?

" _From the pit he shall rise, underestimating, he's unwise._ "

Tartarus, it couldn't be clearer, and that is what worried him, prophecies were never clear. That's why he wondered wether the second line was regarding the same deity, or if maybe it's about something else.

" _They will fall in despair, in the cold winter air._ "

This part of the prophecy seemed to have already come true if Jason and Frank coming here was anything to go by. They must have been pretty desperate to call help from the one man they had haunted and believed dead for three years.

" _The sea will bring back the framed, and again he shall be claimed._ "

Percy opted to not think about those two lines, they were about him, that much he knew, but he didn't let his mind wonder what the gods and demigods must have thought whilst hearing it.

" _Torn between laws and accords, hydra will leave behind its corps._ "

Hydra would be part of it, that's why the Avengers where into this, because their own enemies would be a part of it as well.

" _Twelve are the weapons to wield, if the rift ever shall be sealed._ "

He had no idea what that meant, and that calmed him down, this was his prophecies were meant to be. Unclear riddles that had double meanings.

" _High up above or down below, good on Gaea they shall bestow._ "

This again either meant that the heavens would win, or hell would, and the more Percy thought about it, the more he knew the odds where with hell winning. But he'd be damned if he let Tartarus take over without a fight.

.

 **Review**

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 **Actually, just the first two, the third would be a bonus but I get it. . .**

 **I promised a rant of some sorts so yeah, sit tight. There's a preview of the next chapter if ya wanna read it further down.**

 **Now, can I just say thank you, bcs this story reached 100 reviews (after I basically begged for them hehe) 300+ followers, which is a major plus bcs this is awesome. And I think this happened a while back, 200+ favorites, whoo whoo.**

 **Apologies for not updating two weeks ago, but inconveniences happened and then I couldn't get enough wifi and the same problem happened when I did have the wifi, so until now, (that I'm on a computer again) I'm updating. XD.**

 **I was in Sicily for three weeks, two of them my iPad didn't connect to the wifi and the last I replied somewhat to reviews...**

 **For anyone who follows Demigods At Hogwarts, the last chapter will be up tomorrow. Fingers crossed bcs I didn't make much progress but it will be up. cross my heart and hope to die.**

 **And then finally, two series- one author: Sarah J. Maas.**

 **I advise you to go read Throne of Glass... In my opinion the first half of the book is somewhat boring, and it took me from February to the beginning of this month to read it, but then... the rest of the series which are five books (six if you count the prequel)... I read it one week. . .**

 **And then there's ACOTAR... and ACOMAF... and ACOWAR...**

 **Just...go read it...**

 **.**

 **Preview for the next chapter:**

 _"It's nice to know that bastard is still technically my father," a voice said and a chill ran through everyone. "Not as nice as seeing you four having a nice chat like four long lost friends discussing the meaning of life over drinks."_

 _When Frank met Percy's eyes, he was met with a steely gaze that seemed to bear holes into his soul and he seemed to be everything but amused. There was a glint in his eyes, and he was afraid to say it wasn't one of kindness and happiness, but more one of madness and insanity._

 _At that moment Frank's mind started to wonder on how much his brain had been wrecked in the past years, or even in the past days alone. From the day before he seemed to have aged at least five years, with the beard and those eyes that held so much more than a twenty-one year old should know or have seen._

 _"Percy," Tony said as he stood up with a fake and hopeful grin on his face. "Thought you'd take half an hour."_

 **.**

 **So yup, hope you enjoyed and yada yada yada. See ya.**

 **Hunter**


	11. Choices Were Made

**Hello there.**

 **I have srsly nothing to say except, I start school in one week and half and I am as good as hating that factor bcs I don't want to. I've gained difficulty to going to sleep early, bcs I wake late. And I wake late bcs I go to sleep late. It's a circle. A never ending circle to which I have no clue how I can keep it up for school.**

 **But whatever!**

 **Enjoy this thing...**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _Percy pointed his finger at the son of Jupiter. "Don't call me pussy, Jason. When you're the ones who can't even stand up to puny deities such as gods! Following their every order."_

 _"If they're so puny then why are you hiding in Alaska?" Frank asked before Jason could say something he would come to regret. "Why aren't you in New York, facing them head to toe?"_

 _"Simple," Percy said. "Because then the lives of the Avengers would be in the way."_

 _"And what if they use those very lives against you?" Jason asked. "What if they use them to get to you? What then? Are you going to turn yourself in? Are you going to be that cowardly to wait until it gets to that, when you can make sure it doesn't by agreeing now–"_

 _"Leave," Percy said calmly._

 _"What?"_

 _"Leave," he repeated. "Before I take out my guns, and shoot a bullet through your skull."_

 _Jason understood this time, he took a piece of paper from his pocket and held it out to Percy. The son of Poseidon seemed compelled for take it into his palm. Jason's gloved hand brushing against Percy's mechanical one as the piece of paper was passed to the recipient._

 _"That's the prophecy. When you read that, if you read that, make your way to Mackenzie Bay, a man will be waiting for you there. It will signal a…truce, if you want to call it that… an alliance in other words, between the Avengers and the gods. Between you and us… In the eve of the thirteenth, your ah… time for doing this in a civilised manner."_

 _._

 **X-X-Factas Electiones-X-X**

( _Choices Were Made_ )

-.-.-

December 12th

-.-.-

Percy was in town when he saw the jet, because obviously the billionaire had a soft spot for dramatics much like his…uncle. He urged Jerry to gallop towards it even though the horse seemed reluctant, but he seemed to trust Percy enough to go towards what he thought was danger.

The exiled demigod sat leisurely on the saddle as he watched Tony Stark and Clint Barton get out of the jet. Both of them were dressed up just fine with the addition of sun glasses. Percy might have not recognised them, had he not known them as good as he had.

He looked at them disapprovingly as they approached him. Luckily, not many citizens had the brilliant idea of seeing what it was and therefore there wasn't much chance of unfolding the secret identity of any of the 'undercover' Avengers.

"What are you doing here?" Percy asked them, this time much more kindly than he had the day before with another pair.

"Why of course to spend time with our favourite guy," Tony said sarcastically. "Now get off that horse and come inside the jet so we can bring you home."

Percy shook his head and as if the horse had understood him, he took a few steps back. "I'm not going back to New York."

"Why not?" Clint asked. "They're not going to kill you. And we can keep you safe."

An image flashed in front of Percy's eyes, Zeus standing in front of the corpses of the Avengers, his lightning bolt in hands as their bodies seemed to have been electrocuted and were charred black.

Jerry took one more step back, sensing the uneasiness of his rider towards these two unfamiliar humans.

"How about we bring this to the cottage," Percy said. "Jerry's tired, and I'm sure Olivia won't mind."

"And how on earth are we supposed to come to your secluded-from-the-whole-world cottage?" Tony asked as he pointed around the seemingly desolated village.

"If you give me half an hour I can pick you up," Percy said. "Time to get Jerry back and get the car and come back."

"Do we have another choice?" Clint asked.

"Nope," Percy said with a grin. "You can wait at the cafe, they make good coffee in case you need some of it."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll need it." Tony said. "Half an hour kid, otherwise I'm rampaging through the forest with the jet."

Percy glared at him but it was mocking. "I'm not a kid."

-.-

Frank felt like a stalker, but he could swear it was just a coincidence…–If only he believed in coincidences. But Jason and him were sitting in a cafe bar, when they heard the jet flying landing just nearby in the clearing. Then they saw him, Percy himself, galloping towards it on one of the horses they had seen at his home the other day, and if things didn't seem bad enough as they were, two of the Avengers were on the jet.

The trio had started talking, and Frank could see that Percy didn't seem the most happy person on the planet. And then he had galloped away back towards his house. And what was worse, the two Avengers in 'disguise' entered the same cafe they were in.

They had chosen to stay in Barrow for the remaining of the two days, in order to be able to keep a track on Percy and wether he would follow through with the prophecy and agree to help them, or wether he was simply going to stay here, hidden away for as long as it took the gods to arrive with their own methods.

Frank had said it was a bad idea, Jason on the other hand had said it was a good idea.

As the two Avengers entered the bar, Jason muttered a quick agreement that it had been, indeed, a bad idea. Especially when the two Avengers took their seats next to them.

"What are you guys doing here?"

Frank wasn't sure wether that had been Clint to ask the question, or had it been Jason.

"You know," Jason said. "Same old same old, watching out for our…ah, friend."

"Friend?" Clint asked. "You guys fixed your problems."

"He kicked us out," Jason said in defeat. "So I wouldn't say. But we managed to give him the prophecy, and say half of what we had wanted to say…"

"How'd he take it," Tony asked, pleasure etched on his face knowing that they hadn't managed it get through to Percy, since he was still there.

"Not in the best of light," Frank asserted. "Like Jason said, he kicked us out with a threat."

Clint laughed. "Which was?"

" 'Leave before I take out my guns and put a bullet in your skull'," Jason mimicked.

Tony, –who was sitting next to Jason, whilst Clint was sitting next to Frank– clapped Jason on the shoulder, although Jason felt no sympathy in the act, only humour that the billionaire was feeling at the prospect of Percy having kicked them out much like he had kicked out the other one from the tower.

"So I'm going to hope and guess you stayed the night because it was late, or your car broke down, right? And that you're going to leave him alone?"

Jason forced a smile on his face, and Tony knew it was fake.

"Well not exactly," he said. "You see, the prophecy clearly states that he will come back. Wether it's by his own will or not, that's unclear, but he will. And if my life as a demigod has taught me anything, it's that prophecies can't be thwarted. Sure, they can have double meanings, but they cannot be thwarted."

"What exactly does the prophecy say?" Clint asked, clasping his hands together and leaning on the table.

Jason had written it down so many times that he pulled out the first piece of paper in his pocket and he knew it contained the prophecy written down.

Frank seems to realise something. "How many times did you write that down?"

"A few," the son of Jupiter relented. "I could have lost it and then be empty handed when I actually had to give it to him. Didn't want that to happen, so I prepared myself."

Frank chuckled lowly. "Can't believe it. Leo has been rubbing off on you."

Jason chuckled and as he thought about it, he had indeed been spending a lot of his spare time with the son of Hephaestus, maybe it wasn't that healthy, but then again, it kept him young, not that it was a problem, seeing as though he was immortal and still looked like a sixteen year old.

"Isn't this weird?" he asked suddenly.

"Isn't what weird?" Tony asked him with a raise of his eyebrows and not looking amused, as Clint held his eyebrows scrunched up as he read the prophecy.

"The fact you two, two super heroes, are sitting in a booth, in the middle of nowhere, in Alaska, with two teenagers?"

"And all for Percy Jackson," Tony added in a mutter. "Yeah, it is weird, but hey, having Percy around when he looked as young as you was enough for us to get over it."

"This is crazy," Clint proclaimed as he finished reading the prophecy. "What are the weapons to be wield, and why is hydra all of sudden part of this? And–"

"Pass me the paper, Barton" Tony said as he snatched the slip of paper out of his hands. "What's so confusing about–"

Mortal heroes and half-bloods shall bond,

And he shall be back but not for long.

Known for betrayal and murder,

The whole ordeal is much harder.

From the pit he shall rise,

Underestimating, he's unwise.

They shall fall in despair,

In the cold winter air.

The sea will bring back the framed,

And again she shall be claimed.

Torn between laws and accords,

Hydra will leave its corps.

Twelve are the weapons to wield,

If the rift ever shall be sealed.

High up above or down below,

Good on Gaea they shall bestow.

"Okay," Tony said as he processed the riddles in his mind. "Wait up, who– what comes up with these kind of things? Is this what you people go by, what you follow on your quests? It seems like a lot of BS."

"BS?" Jason asked.

"Really?" Tony asked frustrated. "Everything I said and that's what you pick up?"

"It's not a what," Frank replied to his initial question. "It's a who. The Spirit of Delphi, the oracle of Phoebus Apollo, the god of the sun, archery, music, arts and who knows how many other things –no offence to you."

"So," Tony drawled. "Basically this spirit vomits out words and you write them on a piece of paper and use them as the guiding steps as to how to defeat a someone?"

"That's not exactly it," Frank said. "But bluntly, yes, that's exactly it."

"Well, that's confusing. What else, oh yeah? Why do we have to bond? And how do you even know that it's even talking about the Avengers and not some type of agency like the PDs, or something?"

"It could have meant anyone of them," Jason agreed with him. "But coincidences don't happen to demigods. Percy is part of the Avengers isn't he, he's Gladiator. Our paths have intertwined and there's gotta be a reason behind that. You're the 'mortal heroes' the prophecy is talking about. And Percy is who's going to unite us."

Clint coughed to hide his snort. "I think I've heard you right when you said he kicked you out of his home just yesterday."

"Yes," Frank said. "But as long as Percy agrees to work together, to form an alliance with us, he'll be the link connecting the Avengers, you, to the demigods, us. Because he's both."

"He's not a demigod anymore," Tony pointed out. "And what's to say that your friends at your camps would even welcome him back."

"They'll have to," Jason said. "And for as long as he lives he'll always be a demigod. It doesn't matter that his father disowned him, all he really did was strip him of the majority of his powers, nothing more than that. His DNA is still half mortal and half godly, and even though Poseidon will deny him being his son and his birthright, Poseidon still remains Percy's real biological father–"

"It's nice to know that bastard is still technically my father," a voice said and a chill ran through everyone. "Not as nice as seeing you four having a nice chat like four long lost friends discussing the meaning of life over drinks. Without the drinks obviously."

When Frank met Percy's eyes, he was met with a steely gaze that seemed to bear holes into his soul and he seemed to be everything but amused. There was a glint in his eyes, and he was afraid to say it wasn't one of kindness and happiness, but more one of madness and insanity.

At that moment Frank's mind started to wonder on how much his brain had been wrecked in the past years, or even in the past days alone. From the day before he seemed to have aged at least five years, with the beard and those eyes that held so much more than a twenty-one year old should know or have seen.

"Percy," Tony said as he stood up with a fake and hopeful grin on his face. "Thought you'd take half an hour."

The exiled demigod did not return the grin, instead he clenched his hands into fists and as he spoke, controlled his voice. "I didn't think you'd like waiting. Afraid you'd set something on fire."

"Hey," Tony said as he shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not that disruptive–"

"How about we go to the cottage, like you had said, Percy," Clint interrupted before Tony would lose the point of the conversation and end up talking about he sun and the moon and theories left and right.

Percy clenched his jaw. "I swear–"

"None of that," Clint said as he stood up. "We're coming."

-.-

Percy threw the door open and dropped his stuff on the coat hanger in anger, stomping into the house.

"What's wrong?" Olivia asked as she appeared in the doorframe of the entrance. But Percy had already left and instead she met the two Avengers, who looked shaken up and were slowly taking their coats off.

"Um, hi," Tony said as he noticed the older lady.

Her face split into a smile as she waved at them both. "Oh, hi. I'll be upstairs, call when you want dinner to be ready."

"Thank you, Mrs. Sparks!" Clint said kindly as he hung his scarf on the coat hanger.

Then all three of them were off, Olivia going up the stairs whilst the two avengers made their way towards the living room where the son of Poseidon sat uncomfortably on a couch for one.

"Percy listen–"

"I don't want to hear it," he said cutting them off. Then he looked at them and Clint could see the war going on in Percy's head just by looking at his face face. "I don't care about your explanations, and I don't care whether you hang with them. I'm going."

"Going where?" Tony said, suddenly very interested in what Percy was saying.

Percy crossed his arms as he stared them down. "Mackenzie Bay, in Canada. The prophecy isn't the clearest, but it's clear about one thing. I have to face my past."

It hadn't been final until he said it out loud. And now that he had, something seemed to have replaced the weight on his shoulders. It's like as if the weight he had before was getting rusty and old, and it was now being replaced by something new and shiny. It was still a weight, but it looked towards something better than the previous one had.

"You're going back to the gods?" Tony asked.

"No!" Percy snapped, then he sighed, calming his nerves. "No. Me going back, and facing what I left behind is not me 'going back to the gods'. Don't ever think that."

"Sorry, my bad. But are you sure you even know what you'd be doing in Mackenzie Bay?"

"No," he admitted. "But apparently an old man will be waiting there. I'm putting my faith in the fates this once. I'll trust the future to make the best of the situation. I'll be careful–"

"Percy, that's suicide!" Tony said. "They're going to kill you!"

"Have you read the prophecy?" Percy asked accusingly. "Because–"

"Because what? You're the one that told us that gods are cunning evil liars–" Thunder seemed to boom far away, although it should be impossible, they were in the land beyond the gods… "–and now you're willingly going back?"

"Why did you give them my address if you didn't want me to go back, then?" Percy asked, standing up and getting into Tony's face.

"Oh, that wasn't me," Tony yelled back. "That was Clint, and Cap, and Natasha, and all the others that were there. Not me! I was against it all!"

Percy seemed lost. "Well too bad."

He slouched back on top of the couch he had been sitting on and glared at the floor ahead of him.

"Do you even know who this old man is?" Clint asked, in a much more calm manner. "What he's going to look like? What he's going to do?"

"No," Percy admitted. "But like I told you, I'm going to trust my instincts and hope for the best–"

"That's it?" Tony said disgusted. "You're going to 'hope for the best'? That's all you're going to do? After the risk you've put us all through you're just going to 'hope for the best'?"

A pang of guilt hit Percy right in the chest, where his heart was and it seemed to be forming a knot around it. Tony's words seemed to have made their point alright, in his mind, Percy was thinking just how selfish he had been in the bast three years, hiding behind the Avengers and using them as his cushion from the fall he had taken from the gods. He had used them as his pillow to sleep over the nightmares and as blankets to cover himself up when he needed warmth and friendships… he felt like a monster.

"You don't get to do that, young man," Tony continued and Percy noticed the 'young man', diverse from the usual 'kid'. "You don't. You don't get to go back to your old family and leave us behind like we were just your chance to heal. Because Percy, we're family too, you're family, the whole 'Avengers' team is family. And you do not get the right to leave like this–"

"Tony!" Clint stopped him with a warning.

"I'm not abandoning you," Percy whispered, he had brought his legs up on the cushion of the sofa he was sitting on, and had pulled them closer to his chest. "I'm not like that. But Tartarus is rising. And there's a prophecy that could help us make sure that he doesn't take full power of the earth, that he doesn't annihilate the whole human population –because that's what he'll do. But in order to stop him, we have to work together, Avengers with Demigods. We got to do it."

Tony seemed defeated, he sat on the couch where Clint had taken a seat at the beginning of the discussion. His head fell into his hands and he ran a hand through his hair. When he looked back up at Percy he seemed like he was pleading.

"Don't go, Percy," he said. "They're going to kill you, if not tomorrow, then when it's over. You'll be mentally distraught, they'll hate you–"

"I've had a whole night to sleep on this Tony," Percy said slowly. "I know exactly what lays ahead. Only hardships… but when has it ever been different?"

"Not today," Tony asked pleadingly, his last resort. "Stay one more day."

"I can't," Percy said. "The 'due date' is tomorrow. I gotta do it this way. Maybe we can manage to evade the whole 'trying to kill each other' thing, before we even make the alliance. I won't forgive them, if you're wondering. But the other seven billion people living on this earth do not deserve to die because one man was too cowardly to face his past."

Tony looked down at the floor and Clint clapped him on the back.

"I swear Percy," he said. "If you do, I'll personally come to the underworld to kill you again. And don't you dare go before we wake in the morning. Otherwise I'll hunt you down and you'll never reach Mackenzie Bay alive, got it?"

Percy chuckled and nodded. "Right, don't worry."

"Good," Clint said satisfied. "How can I help for dinner? I'm starving."

-.-

Thing is, maybe they should have worried. Because Percy had no intention of even falling asleep. And maybe it was cruel to leave like that in the middle of the night. But he really didn't trust them to actually let him go when the time would be right.

No, much better to do it now, when they had just fallen asleep so even if Clint was going to follow through with his threat, he'd arrive in Mackenzie Bay before they even woke up, giving the archer no time to actually literally kill him.

This did not mean he didn't feel guilty to leave them like this. If it were for him he would have said screw it, and stayed another full day with the two Avengers. But time was never on his side, or on any demigod's side, there always had to be a time-limit, and in this case it was set by the gods themselves.

He wasn't mentally ready to even see them, but he knew that if the world had to wait for his mind to get ready for the hardships ahead of him, it would die of global warming before it happened. So he did what he used to do all the time, he winged it.

His first step was to shave off the beard that had grown on his face, it was handsome, for someone living in the middle of nowhere like he was right now, but once he returned in human civilisation, it would not look as handsome as it did now, so he shaved it off. No doubt it would grow back in no time anyways.

And then he grabbed his camera and put it in front of him, twisted the screen around so he could see himself and pressed on the record button.

He recorded himself, an apology to the two Avengers sleeping in the extra room upstairs and a quick recap of what he was going to do. He explained where he was going to go, the time it would take him and practically anything they might need to know. With a second apology to the two Avengers for taking the car and not being able to drive them back to their jet.

He grinned internally at the thought of Tony complaining about the fact that he'd have to walk all the way back or at the image of him sitting behind Olivia's jeep truck as it bumped around, with a sixty year old at the wheel instead of him.

And then he stopped recording, he took out the card from the camera and set it down on the dining table where he knew it wouldn't be missed.

He grabbed the notepad and wrote a quick instruction letter, directed at both Olivia and the Avengers in the cottage. Knowing full well that Tony and Clint would not be the only ones getting a heart stroke when they realised he was missing.

Once he was done with the note he unfolded the slip of paper where there prophecy was written and copied it down on another notepaper, so that the Avengers would have a copy of it in case they didn't already. He tried his best to make his handwriting neat and comprehensible, but in the end he wasn't sure he had managed. It still looked like chicken scratched to him, and after a moment he realized that it probably was.

He then packed his bag, which consisted of band-aids, bandages and a bottle of liquor. Yes, a bottle of liquor. He wasn't sure he'd want to remember what would happen in the next few days and maybe alcohol was the solution, but he knew it most likely wasn't and that he might not even take it. After Gabe, he had always been cautious with it, and around people that had taken it, because he was afraid he'd turn in the same monster his stepfather had been.

When he was as ready as he could be, he grabbed two apples and exited the house and approached the two horses who had been appalled by the odor of the two apples. He gave one to each one of the Frisians and then pet their muzzles respectively, before looking at Eliza longingly.

"You be a good mother, okay?" he said sadly. "I won't be able to see the cub. But be good, and don't give Olivia too much trouble."

He then turned towards the stallion. "And you be a good father. I swear I'll make you run twenty laps if I come to figure you haven't helped your mate with the cub! Be good please, both of you."

The horses neighed and he smiled sadly, and he wished beyond anything that he could understand what they were saying, because he was scared. And maybe if he'd hear their words he might not feel as scared. They might be kind and supportive words. Whatever they were, he couldn't hear them and he turned his back on the horses.

He threw his bag in the passenger seat and sat down at the driver's seat. The engine roared to life and he set himself on the road. Route towards: Mackenzie Bay.

.

 **Hey, you know what I always as for... so yeah, do that if you care... if ya don't then don't. It's fine either way.**

 **Can I just say, that I am utterly confused, bcs, my keyboard keeps changing from American English to British English, and I've been using British English for a while now, and now I started with American and it's confusing.**

 **Gahd.**

 **.**

 **Preview for the next chapter since I have it:**

 _"So is this headed to Olympus, or what?" he asked, his voice rising over the sound of rain and thunder._

 _The old man looked at him and Percy had the urge to take a step back, but he suppressed it for the sake of his dignity. There was an invisible aura glowing around the man, like he was some sort of divine being, which after he thought about it, he probably was. A god in disguise. But his senses of a demigod were gone, and his knowledge slipping through memory, resulting in him not being able to pinpoint what or who this man was._

 _His face was wrinkly, and full of freckles given to him by the old age. His hair was white and his bear was shaggy around his mouth and jaw, but his jawline was firm and refined, muscles were clear under the loose jacket he wore around his torso. His eyes were hard to see and decipher, but Percy could make out blue and green mixed together, dark blue and green, dark like the raging seas under the attack of the piercing rain._

 _"No," the man said, with a surprisingly young voice. "It's headed to Atlantis."_

 _._

 **I have no explanation for that except, that some s*** is going to go down. XD.**

 **No SPOILERS from me. Although I guess the preview is already a spoiler.**

 **Hunter**


	12. The Adventure Begins

**Im an awful person. And also very stupid. My head is in the clouds most of the time as well.**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _Thing is, maybe they should have worried. Because Percy had no intention of even falling asleep. And maybe it was cruel to leave like that in the middle of the night. But he really didn't trust them to actually let him go when the time would be right._

 _No, much better to do it now, when they had just fallen asleep so even if Clint was going to follow through with his threat, he'd arrive in Mackenzie Bay before they even woke up, giving the archer no time to actually literally kill him._

 _He threw his bag in the passenger seat and sat down at the driver's seat. The engine roared to life and he set himself on the road. Route towards: Mackenzie Bay._

 **X-X-** **Mirificus Cursus Incipit-X-X**

( _The Adventure Begins_ )

-.-.-

13th December

-.-.-

Clint felt something was off. Which was weird, because nothing should have been off, not until Percy went off on his suicidal solo quest, anyways… But why did it feel so weird and…off. It wasn't supposed to, that much even he knew.

He wished someone was sharing his…off feeling… but the only person in the room other than himself was Tony Stark, and the billionaire was snoring away, quite happily he might add…

"Something's off," he said, his voice a level tone, but of course there was no answer form the sleeping man in the other bed.

"Tony!" he said in a sharp tone and Stark jerked up quickly, looking around until he focused on only Clint.

"What?" he snapped, clearly annoyed to having been woken up.

"Something's off."

Tony had learned to trust instincts, because he couldn't remember the amount of times that he hadn't and he had ended up in a stupid and tricky situation. And most of all, he trusted a spy's instinct even more, because they were trained and they knew exactly what kind of feeling meant what. And he was sure, that if Clint's gut told him something was off, then something was most likely off.

"Percy," he breathed out and before he could acknowledge it, he was pushing the blankets off his body and standing up. Reaching for clothes as Clint did the exact same.

The two Avengers first went into Percy's bedroom, where they knew he had gone to before they had gone to bed. But when they arrived, they noticed that the bed was neatly made and didn't look to have been touched. This could have easily meant that he had done it after waking up, but it was unlikely.

Clint approached it and ran his hand over it, feeling for any sign of someone having slept in it for the night, but of course, the blankets felt cold like no one had used them in at least a day.

That was the second give away of the bed… but then again, he could have slept in the living room, for some goddam reason…

They hurried down stairs to meet Olivia, who was preparing breakfast, the scent of eggs and bacon filling their noses. But no sign of Percy.

"Have you seen Percy?" Clint asked Olivia as he entered the kitchen.

The elder lady looked at him and shook her head. "No, but he's done this before. He might have taken Jerry out for a ride."

"Jerry?" Tony asked in confusion.

"Yes, the horse, the male one."

"Ah, yes, of course…horses…"

Clint in the meantime had gone to the window that faced the field in which the two horses were happily laying on the ground next to one another. There were two horses, and there was no Percy.

"He's not there–"

"Clint!" Tony said grimly and Clint understood he had finally found the evidence that would prove his doubts.

Clint turned around to see a camera sitting on the dining table, clear in view –how had he missed it? He was the spy, wasn't he?– with a note attached to it.

To carefully took the note apart from the camera and read it, "My full apologies and explanations are in the video within. PJ."

Tony looked at Clint as the latter made his way towards the former, his footsteps hurried and severe. In a matter of a few strides he was there and Tony was turning the camera on and scrolling to the feeds,

The first shot was of Percy's hand moving away from the camera and him sitting down on the couch behind himself, a grin on his face but it didn't reach anywhere near his eyes.

"Hi," he said. "I know Clint, you said you'd kill me if I left before you woke up, but I'm seriously hoping that by the time you're getting this I'll already be in Mackenzie Bay. If not…I think I'd deserve it. But enough of that!"

He smiled widely at the camera. "I guess this might even be my will or something because if I know one thing, it's that this could go very wrong and I could be walking straight into a trap. So yes, if I do die, you'll know I knew I was walking to my death, and that I was prepared and if this is the end, then so be it. And if it is, please kick, Jason and Frank's asses for me, for being liars…"

His smile fell and his face turned serious. "But, putting that aside. I guess I'm sorry for this, really, especially to you two guys –Clint and Tony– since I told you I'd wait morning but I didn't. But hey, if everything goes well, we'll be laughing about this in a few years. But going back to the apologies, I apologise if I'm giving you a fright, or if you're going to be worried, but please really don't be. I'm going to be fine, worst that happens is that I die. But it takes more than a god to take me down–" he chuckled at his own joke. "–and, in case you haven't yet gotten the idea of where I'm going, it's called Mackenzie Bay, and it's back in Canada, so yes, bigger risk with the gods, but whatever… and, I'm going to try to find that 'old man', and really hope it's not a trap. After that –if it isn't a trap– I'm most likely going to confirm an…uh…alliance with the demigods, at least for myself… I don't know about the rest of you but, I'm going to help them, although as soon as it's over I'm out…"

His face seemed to fall. "So yeah," he said. "I guess this is it– oh and, Tony and Clint, I apologise in advance for taking the car. Although I'm sure Olivia won't mind driving you to the jet… So, see you guys in a while–"

And then his hand was covering the screen, and it turned black, the last picture of him being a goofy grin and glinting eyes. Clint picked up the note that he had left next to the camera and saw that it was yet another copy of the prophecy Jason and Frank and showed them the previous day.

"I'm going to kill him," Clint muttered.

"I'm right behind you!" Tony confirmed as he set the camera down.

"What's going on?"

They both turned towards the doorframe that connected the kitchen with the living room, Olivia was standing there, her pan of eggs and bacon in her hands but it seemed forgotten, her face looked shaken.

"Um–" Tony said. "Clint you're better with this kind of stuff," he then added in a mumble.

"Okay," Clint said. "Percy left for a mission–"

"I understood he left!" she snapped. "But is he going to die?"

"What?" Clint seemed confused for a moment. "No, of course not."

"But he said he could," she pointed out.

Clint made a 'let it go' hand gesture. "Nah, he was joking. He was just forced to go fast, but we're going after him now, he'll be okay."

-.-

Jason was walking the streets of Barrow with his hands stuffed in his pockets, as the cold air hit him, he wondered whether this 'global warming' was actually real, because, being here, in Alaska, kind of proved it wasn't. But then again, he knew this place should have had much more ice and snow, yet, it didn't, the ocean was water, not glaciers and the snow level was very short, most of the land being dry grass.

Today was the day, they day in which Percy either joined their forces, allied himself with them, or the gods would start their hunt again, and Jason was afraid for the outcome…

Because what if Zeus wasn't merciful, what if Percy talked too much and ended up killing Percy, thus lowering their chances at winning the war by a lot. His father was easy to misunderstand, his moods changing so much Jason had difficulty understanding him…

And then there was the matter of the children… of the child… and of Annabeth. The girl had begged him that whatever they told Percy, they wouldn't speak of the child, that they would leave that subject to her, so that she could break to him, so that she could explain to him exactly why what happened had happened… But Jason couldn't help but think that if Percy knew of he child, he wouldn't have even hesitated to join up and help, or maybe it would have added to the reasons why he wouldn't have wanted to…

As he walked the empty streets of Barrow on his own, his mind started to wonder for the first time to the idea of Percy being an Avenger. How had one demigod, as strong as he was, managed to hide right under the gods' noses for so long? He has resided in New York all of this time, and what was more, he was almost always the subject of the main headlines in news articles and even on television. So how had the gods not realised who that was, that Percy Jackson was right there in front of their noses?

He remembered first hearing of the addition of the Avengers, sometime in the late months of the year Percy had been banned, but not for a moment had he thought it was Percy, because like almost everyone else at camp, he had believed the guy to be dead, killed by his own father.

And then he had seen the footage of his fighting, and then Jason had thought, 'That has to be a demigod!' But the face of this hero had never been revealed to the public, it was like the Hulk, he was a green monster, but everyone knew that it was also a person, but who was the person with the Hulk as the other guy? No one knew, like no one knew who Gladiator was. He was the masked hero, the one from ancient times, the one with the sword, the one that let nothing get in his way. Ferocious and merciless to his enemies.

To come to know, that the very hero millions and millions of mortals worshipped was really Percy Jackson, an exiled and disowned demigod…it had taken a toll on Jason. But it had also shown the resilience in the man, the spirit of a survivor and what life could give you. Because even after he lost everything, even his own life, he still managed to stand back up, and rise back to the top, he managed to go back to helping the innocent and saving the world, this time though, with mortals instead of demigods. When one family had shunned him, he had found another one.

Jason wished he could be like him, not dependent on the gods, not their pawn anymore, be able to defy them, and then rise back up to the top of what life could give a person. But he knew he wouldn't be able to do it, not in a million years, because he wasn't as selfless as Percy was, he wasn't as loyal as Percy was, he simply wasn't like Percy Jackson, he was Jason Grace.

But as he thought at the way the Avengers had stood up for him, he couldn't help but be happy for his cousin, because he had ended up with one good family, although they still managed to cause havoc here and there once a year or so, with all the attention and pressure the press and the government was putting on them. In that section, demigods had it easier, it was unknown to the whole world that they even existed, that their service was even there. So no press for them…

"Jason!"

Jason stopped walking and turned around, Frank was running towards him, his weapons strapped to his back.

"What's wrong?" the son of Jupiter asked in concern.

"Percy's gone," he said, stopping in front of the blonde demigod and catching his breath.

"What?"

Frank nodded. "He left, I just got a visit from the Clint and Tony. He left yesterday night."

A smile spread on his lips. "That's good though, ain't it?"

"Yes, if it weren't for the fact that they are going after him right now," the son of Mars said. "And that it could go wrong in so many ways."

"Have a little bit of faith in Percy," Jason said to him. "He's gonna get through it… We should contact the others, warn them of his choice, warn them to stand down and not to go on a world wide hunt for one man."

Frank nodded I agreement, fishing out a drachma from his pocket and grinning. The golden coin glinting in the sunlight.

-.-

Percy's SUV came to a stop as soon as found a parking lot on the harbour. If he was going to die, he'd spend his last minutes walking through a harbour, not clamped in a car. He felt utterly stupid for what he was doing, and half of it was because he might have just wasted a car, and a nice one at that. Because whatever was about to happen now, he was fairly sure that this 'old man', was not harmless, and that he would not be so kind as to let him stay here, or take his car for a ride again. So yes, he just wasted a car.

Then a stupid, stupid thought hit him, and the first beggar he found kneeling on the side of the walking path he chucked the key at him, and flashed him a smile that did not meet his eyes.

The beggar —poor man— got one glimpse at the brand displayed on the car keys, and had his eyes bugling out, but as he looked back up to search for the man, he was gone already, as if he had disappeared into nothing.

Percy strolled through the harbour, hearing the flapping of waves, the sound calming his nerves as his eyes darted from boat to boat, reading the names displayed on them with interest and curiosity.

His thoughts brought him to Clint and Tony, one look at the position of the sun had him guessing that they were already awake, and that they probably already knew exactly what he had done… so that also probably meant that they were on their way here, to scold him, and then kill him, and then kill him again, and then bring him back to the tower in New York.

He shook his head, a grin appearing at his lips, but soon disappeared when he heard thunder above him. When he looked up, he saw clouds gathering, dark thunder clouds. By passers didn't give the clouds a second glance, but Percy understood the message loud and clear. He had a few hours left and Zeus knew exactly where he was. Which meant, that if he failed to meet with this silly old man, he'd be brought in chains to kneel in front of the King of the Gods.

He'd rather get to this old man, than kneel in front of that atrocity of a person again. But rain was starting to pour, and since his 'gifts' wouldn't be helping him much since he'd been disowned and whatnot, he decided to find shelter in the warmth of a caffe, ordering a Latte Macchiato along with a croissant.

If this day was going to go badly, he'd at least charge it head on with his stomach filled.

And just because of his amazing luck, a boat pulled up in the harbour in front of the caffe. The boat's name: _Olympus_.

Olympus…

Did they expect him to go in one of the places they had made very clear what would happen if he stepped in? In the place from which he had been _blasted_ off?

They were crazy.

But he was crazier.

So dropping a ten dollar bill on the counter and muttering a, "Keep the bastard's change," to the cashier who was ready to give him the change, he exited the caffe and strode off to the boat, which was a row boat obviously, and indeed, an old man was emerging from it, looking like he was having the time of his life, and like he was completely oblivious to the rain cascading on himself as he made knot after knot around the small rowboat.

Percy stood at the edge of the harbour platform, but the old man didn't see him, or at least, he didn't acknowledge him.

"So is this headed to Olympus, or what?" he asked, his voice rising over the sound of rain and thunder.

The old man looked at him and Percy had the urge to take a step back, but he suppressed it for the sake of his dignity. There was an invisible aura glowing around the man, like he was some sort of divine being, which after he thought about it, he probably was. A god in disguise. But his senses of a demigod were gone, and his knowledge slipping through memory, resulting in him not being able to pinpoint what or who this man was.

His face was wrinkly, and full of freckles given to him by the old age. His hair was white and his bear was shaggy around his mouth and jaw, but his jawline was firm and refined, muscles were clear under the loose jacket he wore around his torso. His eyes were hard to see and decipher, but Percy could make out blue and green mixed together, dark blue and green, dark like the raging seas under the attack of the piercing rain.

"No," the man said, with a surprisingly young voice. "It's headed to Atlantis."

Atlantis…

 _The Sea Shall Bring Back The Framed_ , the prophecy had said—says.

Percy's eyes hardened on the man, and he beheld him with a gaze that sent most men running, or at least back off.

The sea. Atlantis.

That was his father's reign, and he would die at the bottom of the ocean, he would die of suffocation, and then the pressure before he even reached the bottom of the sea. He wasn't the son of Poseidon anymore. He wasn't the son of the sea god, prince of Atlantis anymore.

He took a deep sigh and ran a hand through his wet hair. "What's the price for the ride?"

The man looked at him confused. "Who said anything of a ride, young man?"

Young man, not kid, he thought. Definitely a god.

"I'm on a tight schedule," Percy said, the irritation clear in his voice. He wasn't going to beg, he wasn't going to be the kind, he was going to be honest and show how much he despised the Greek and Roman deities, it was the least he could do to not go rampaging into Olympus and kill everyone. "What's the price?"

The man—god, whatever he was, looked amused. "Afraid to die, are we?"

That struck a nerve, but he didn't show it. "No," he said, and it wasn't a lie. "I'm not. But I know what the prophecy says, and I know where I fit in it. So let's just get this over with so I can forget this ever happened."

The man —when was he going to introduce himself?— chuckled. "Hop aboard then," he said. "Hop aboard."

Percy clenched his jaw, he was soaked, soaked to the very toe, so soaked that when he took the step to get on the boat his shoes pushed out a stream of water. Soon the cold winter air would catch up with him, and soon he'd be freezing over. He didn't think about that as he sat down on the wooden planks in the boat.

The man —he was seriously sick of not knowing his name— smirked at him. "Do you think this boat is going to oar itself? Help me out, boy. I'm an old man, and you're heavy. You oar for your own weight."

His clenched jaw moved forward, clearly pissed and annoyed, clearly on the verge of kicking this old man off the boat, even if he was a god. Gods how he hated it. But he grabbed an oar, and maybe the movement would do him good to suppress the cold, or maybe it wouldn't. Either way, he helped the old man oar themselves out of the harbour and out in the cold unforgiving ocean.

-.-

Having legitimately no reason to remain in Barrow any minute longer, the two male demigods packed their bags —what little they had brought— hauled them in a car and left. Both of them couldn't wait to be out of Alaska and back in the United States, back in the gods power's reach. It felt as though something settled back in them.

At the high speed they were going, they should do good to arrive at Camp Jupiter by late night, that was, if there weren't any complications on the way that would cause them even more delay than was necessary.

They had contacted camp via an Iris-Message and told them of Percy's choice of action, and told them that the two Avengers were going after him, probably trying to stop him. Annabeth's eyes had darkened during that bit, but she hadn't said anything, instead she had simply kept quiet for the remainder of the time.

Jason was just voicing about the time and how they'd arrive just before nighttime with the speed they were going at, when _something_ had to get in their way and ruin everything. Because he had jinxed it.

They were in a one lanes road ready to embark in the highway when they suddenly stopped because of traffic, and before the car could come to a complete stop, something, more like someone, crashed into their car. And as their car was moved to the edge of the lane, near the edge of the road that then went down hill, Jason knew it was more than one someone but at least two.

As whatever it was retracted to get a run up to the crash back into the car, Jason and Frank both unbuckled their seat belts and reached for their weapons.

THUMP

The beings—monsters, crushed into the car again, and glass shattered, raining down on Jason and cutting his skin where it was exposed, mostly his face, neck and hands as he had raised them to shield himself. Blood immediately showing.

"Get out," he said to Frank. "Get out!"

The son of Mars was quick to open the door of the car and leap out, immediately shifting into a huge bald eagle and soaring over the car to crash into the enemy, soon he was out of sight.

Jason on the other hand could not even budge his door open, the hinges having been ruined by the monsters crashing onto them and the door itself having been dented in an irreparable way. So he opted into moving to get out via Frank's door, but then the monsters crashed into the car again and sent it over the edge, tumbling down.

Frank saw the car topple over the edge, and his heart stopped for a moment, just a moment, along with everything around him, his wings stopped flapping, the leaves stopped moving, the only thing that was moving, was the car with inside his best friend.

After surviving two wars, and incredible hardships, a _car crash_ —caused by monsters, but a car crash nonetheless, was not going to be what took the son of Jupiter's life. Not if he could help it. And indeed, he could.

His shifts were quick, quicker than they'd ever been. First he was an eagle, then he was a bear, throwing the monsters off him, clawing his way through, an elephant, stomping his way through, and then he was an eagle again, taking flight and soaring towards the tumbling car.

Then he was an elephant again, his trunk stopping the car from rolling farther down the hill. Slowly, settling it on the ground. Softly.

Then before his heart could beat another time he was back in human form, his massive, bulging arms, ripping the door off its hinges from the outside.

"Jason?" he said frantically.

The son of Jupiter's only response was an incomprehensible mumble, "Frank?"

He was alive.

Frank could have wept, were it not for the small legion of monsters now careening their way down the hill towards them. He grabbed the half unconscious form of the son of Jupiter underneath his shoulders and hauled him out of the car as quickly as he could. He humphed as Jason finally touched the ground safely, he then pulled him to the side, away from the wrecked car, having watched enough police films to know it could explode.

Then he turned around, grabbed the bow from his shoulder, notched an arrow and fired. The arrow met its mark. The ground at the feet of the monsters exploded as the arrow head detonated. What was left of that first line of monsters was nothing but a shower of dust and sand.

He notched another arrow.

He'd always wondered how his clothes remained on, especially when he turned into such huge animals, even more wonderful, how his weapons remained. But he didn't waste a beast to question the gods about what and that, instead, he fought. Fought to protect himself, and fought to protect his friend.

Once his explosive arrows ran out, he resulted into grabbing the spear from his back and bringing it in front of him, his left hand transforming in one of a best, the sharp claws it offered would be put in good use in a fight such as this.

Before the monster lines so much as got ten yards from him, a big —huge— drakon bone lance swept them to the side, some monsters got unlucky and the sharp side of the blade cut through them, disintegrating them into dust in no time.

Then before Frank could attack, gigantic boots were in front of him, and a lance was flying everywhere, knocking down monster after monster, killing it and sending it back to the pit, until the bane of the Olympian war god roared, "Be gone!"

The small amount of monsters that was left standing didn't need to be told twice, grabbing whatever weapons the could wells and fleeing north.

Frank took in the Giant that had without doubt, just saved his life. When he recognised the hair, the eyes, the clothing… maybe the monster legion would have been better than facing this one particular Giant. Especially when said Giant was the band of Ares, Damasen. The band of his father.

He held his spear defensively in front of himself, his legs spread and bended, ready to pounce should the situation call for it. But for the moment, the bane did not make a single move that gave the idea he wanted to attack.

Then he remembered what Annabeth had said had happened during their time in Tartarus, their first time. How Damasen and 'Bob' had helped them escape, sacrificing their lives for it, too. But apparently, they hadn't been absorbed in Tartarus essence, not completely. Otherwise, Frank doubted the Bane of Ares would be standing in front of him, looking more than bored.

"I've been searching for you," Damasen said. "I have a gift."

Frank took a step back. "A gift?"

Not once in his demigod life, did his enemy present himself by saying he had a gift for him. Not once. And he also had the suspicion this would be the first and last time. He hoped so too. He could hear Jason had the same train of thoughts, if the mumbles and confused expression were anything to go by.

He faced the Giant again, and found him to be standing at a much more normal and…human size, a little taller than Frank himself. He extend his arm with the lance towards the son of Mars.

All Frank could do was look as confused as hell as he looked at the weapon, and then at the Giant.

"What is this?"

"It's my gift," Damasen replied. "You'll soon learn what it does, and how to use it." He nudged the lance closer to the demigod. It was all Frank could do to grab the Lance from the Giant-turned-human-sized.

"Why are you giving this to me?" Frank asked, confusion coating his words.

The Giant's eyes gleamed. "It'll help," he said. "Plus, I've never been the fighting type anyways."

Frank could have argued after seeing the battle that had occurred simply minutes before. "But what do I do with this?"

"You're the son of my Bane, you must wield it," the Giant said. "Along with eleven others. You fight _him_."

He was sure Annabeth would be able to figure out whatever Damasen was implying. She was the smart one in their group, not him. He would simply tell her and wait for her to solve the puzzle. His nerves were frayed in the moment, and he didn't think he could withstand solving riddles, not without a good night's rest and possibly a long warm shower.

He was about to murmur a 'Thanks', to the Giant, but when he looked up from the Lance, the band was already gone.

His eyes fell in the Lance once more and he noticed a little blob towards the hilt of it, he didn't think twice about clicking it. The weapon seemed to retract on itself, like it was being folded up. Until all that was left was a skeletal looking bracelet.

He shook his head in disbelief as he turned around to face the son of Jupiter, who had let the darkness take him over.

A groan escaped his lips, because, how the hell was he supposed to get to…—anywhere?

-.-

"Exactly how long do I still have to keep rowing?" Percy asked the old man, who had thankfully introduced himself as Don. Odd name if you asked him, but he was already in a foul mood, he didn't need it get this cranky god on his bad side as well, so he didn't mention what he thought about the name.

They had been rowing for hours to no end, and night had swept in. That's how long they'd been rowing. Hours and hours. His arms ached and he felt as if the rest of his body was never going to be able to move again. It had frozen up in such a way that his toes hurt and he couldn't move them. He was still soaked, because apparently, Zeus enjoyed keeping that thunder cloud right over them.

He knew it had followed them since Mackenzie Bay to… to wherever they were now. Once he would have been able to tell exactly were they were and how fast they were travelling by boat, but now… now nothing told him anything. Now he couldn't keep himself dry from the rain, couldn't even so much as ask the currents to push them faster.

"Are you always this impatient?" Don asked.

Percy rolled his eyes. He was in a foul mood indeed. And what pissed him off the most was how Don seemed so at ease in this crampy old boat, how the rain and the cold didn't seem to be bothering him, how he seemed at home.

"You didn't answer my question," Percy grumbled.

It had gone on like that for the whole time, Percy asking questions and Don either vaguely answering them, or circling around them until he changed the subject and Percy forgot he had asked the question.

"We have to reach Atlantis do we not—?"

"Are you raging mad?" Percy asked, his hand were gripping the Don's shirt collar in no time, having left the oars. He pushed the old man against the side of the boat, keeping him upright by the collar of the shirt. Percy knew he must have looked like a demon, heavy rain pouring down his face, splattering his dark hair on his face, his eyes mad like the storm brewing around them, the moonlight making his scar glint.

"That's miles and miles away."

"Get your hands off me," Don said, his voice unusually low. Dangerously low.

The Avenger knew a threat when he heard one. He let go of the old man and sat back down on his wooden plank, not even glancing at the oars. His arms finally resting, limp in his laps.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Some way between where we started and out destination."

Percy barked out a laugh. "You want me to row all the way to Atlantis? In one day?" he asked. "God, you must have fried your brain if you think I'm going to row that much, to go to that bastard's home."

Something in Don's eyes changed, shifted, but Percy couldn't see it, not with this rain. He didn't notice it. Nor did he notice the hard edge the older man seemed to take.

"Giving up already?" Don asked mockingly.

Percy buried his head in his hands. "Fuck off," he said. "You can tell that gods-dammed sea god that if he really wants to talk to me, then he can come here and pick me up. I'm not moving another inch. Not even if I freeze over. I'm done running to my death."

Don chuckled, a sound that had Percy's head snap up and his eyes glare daggers at the old man.

"What's so funny, old man?" he asked. "Never thought I'd give up?"

"Oh no," Don said, rising to his feet. "I knew you'd give up. I even made a bet with my brother as to when you would."

Percy's face showed his confusion well and clear, and apart from that it started showing anger as well. Because he was piecing what he had said together. What he had seen and lived through. "What are you talking about?"

When Don finally standing straight, Percy could swear he seemed taller, more muscular and younger. More divine. "Why of course, my brother and I decided to bet on how far you'd go before you'd give up. How far it would take you to stop rowing. How far you'd go for the gods."

It just occurred to him that this might have been a test. A gods-dammed test. Percy bared his teeth and it was all he could do before he lounged at the old man, who kept on looking younger and younger—

He found himself laying on his back, three spikes of a trident an inch from his throat. Where Don had stood now stood a man, in his early forties, tousled black hair and indeed, sea green eyes staring back at him.

Poseidon.

"You bastard!" Percy snarled, putting his right hand down for support as he tried to push himself up, but the tips of those three spikes were unyielding. "Don't you ever stop gambling with my life?"

Before Percy could see a reaction, a fraction of the boat where Percy's head had laid disappeared. The unforgiving waters lapping against his tousled hair. His eyes still glaring daggers at the man in front of him. The one with a trident at his neck. The man he had once called his father.

Poseidon was down next to him in a heartbeat, his trident gone, yet his right hand was now over Percy's throat. "Exactly how badly do you hate big waters?"

Percy's eyes widened at the question. Poseidon didn't give him the time to answer as he pushed the demigod off the boat, going in the water after him. It was mere seconds before the demigod was knocked out, water filling his lungs. The sea god quickly put a thin veil of air around him, making sure he was breathing and that he was still alive, before he flashed themselves to Atlantis.

Little had Percy known, they had been very close.

.

 **Im just going to hope its good, and that you enjoyed it.**

 **.**

 **Preview of the next chapter:**

 _He couldn't gather his bearings._

 _That's the first thing he realized as he slipped back into consciousness. He couldn't gather where he was, what he was doing, and why he was there. He felt like he was suffocating, his head spun incredibly fast and it ached so bad. It felt like something was pressing a hot iron to the side of his brain. His lungs felt full, but not of air, but of water—_

 _Water!_

 **.**

 **I felt silly for that since some might have already...**

 **Hunter**


	13. Truths Revealed

**Hi, I'm sorry for the mistake last time...**

 **I rlly don't know what to say about it so please, enjoy -re-enjoy- this chapter...**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _"What's so funny, old man?" he asked. "Never thought I'd give up?"_

 _"Oh no," Don said, rising to his feet. "I knew you'd give up. I even made a bet with my brother as to when you would."_

 _Percy's face showed his confusion well and clear, and apart from that it started showing anger as well. Because he was piecing what he had said together. What he had seen and lived through. "What are you talking about?"_

 _When Don finally standing straight, Percy could swear he seemed taller, more muscular and younger. More divine. "Why of course, my brother and I decided to bet on how far you'd go before you'd give up. How far it would take you to stop rowing. How far you'd go for the gods."_

 _It just occurred to him that this might have been a test. A gods-dammed test. Percy bared his teeth and it was all he could do before he lounged at the old man, who kept on looking younger and younger—_

 _He found himself laying on his back, three spikes of a trident an inch from his throat. Where Don had stood now stood a man, in his early forties, tousled black hair and indeed, sea green eyes staring back at him._

 _Poseidon._

 _"You bastard!" Percy snarled, putting his right hand down for support as he tried to push himself up, but the tips of those three spikes were unyielding. "Don't you ever stop gambling with my life?"_

 _._

 **X-X-Quae Manifestantur-X-X**

( _Truths Revealed_ )

-.-.-

14th December

-.-.-

When he came to, he was glad to know that there was a bright light ahead of him, and that he was laying on something soft. And that there was a blanket around him as well.

"What happened?" His voice was raspy.

How much time had passed?

He didn't dare open eyes fully, because the light seemed too bright, even though his eyes were barely open. He didn't know wether there was even anyone there, listening to him.

His fingers twitched and he curled them into a fist. His eyes closed but his hands moved to support his weight as he pushed himself into a sitting position. Immediately, big burly hands were on him, helping him sit up.

"Easy there," Frank said. "You received quite the blows."

"What happened?"

He cracked one eye open to survey the son of Mars to his side, taking in the room as well. From what he could see it was an hotel room.

"And where are we?"

Frank grinned. "Were in California," he said. "And we had an accident."

"An accident?"

He could remember something banging against the door of his car, and then —gods his car!

"Did we wreck my car?"

The son of Mars laughed. "You almost died, and that's what you're thinking about. A car?" His voice was incredulous, but there was a tone to it, like he needed to say something but wasn't really.

Jason opened both of his eyes and then blinked several times as he cursed at how bright the light was. Then he turned to face Frank. "What happened after?"

"Well, the monsters attacked," he replied smoothly. "I killed off a bunch before one of the Giants arrived and finished off the rest."

Jason's eyebrows scrunched together. "A Giant that kills monsters?"

The smile Frank gave him didn't reach his eyes. "Yeah," it turned into a grimace. "That's the confusing part, one which I haven't even started to figure about."

He unhooked a bracelet from his wrist —when did he get that?— and twisted the bone like beads. What Jason saw, he'd seen happen many times before, with different weapons and accessories. The bracelet seems to elongate, like it was unfolding from itself until in Frank's hand was held a Lance.

"What is that?"

"A weapon," Frank deadpanned.

Jason's from deepened. "What happened?" he asked for the umpteenth time.

Frank grimaced again, tapping something on the butt of the lance, causing it to turn back into a drakon boned bracelet which he slipped back on his wrist.

"Damasen gave it to me," he said and then he told the son of Jupiter exactly what the Giant had told him regarding the weapon. Jason listened, but his confusion didn't dissipate, only increased. Frank felt a tad bit bad for the son of Jupiter, if only because he was dumping information like this on him right after he regained consciousness. He didn't expect Jason to understand any of it better than he had.

Then when Jason made to swing his legs over the side of the bed, Frank started fussing.

"Man, you were in a car crash," he said as he pushed him back to the bed. "You're not supposed to be doing anything."

"I feel fine," Jason said, which was a lie, because he felt like he could go to sleep and stay that way for a month, every inch of him hurt, and his neck…gods his neck ached so much. But he knew that the cuts from the glass had somewhat healed, leaving behind thin and small white lines.

"You don't look fine, and you don't sound it either," Frank said, keeping his hand in front of Jason, disabling him from moving out of bed again. "Please just rest for a few hours. We'll be back on the road by noon."

Jason really felt like he should have argued more, but when Frank then suggested he sleep some more, the son of Jupiter didn't really manage to say much more before the land of Morpheus kidnapped him inside.

-.-

He couldn't gather his bearings.

That's the first thing he realised as he slipped back into consciousness. He couldn't gather where he was, what he was doing, and why he was there. He felt like he was suffocating, his head spun incredibly fast and it ached _so_ bad. It felt like something was pressing a hot iron to the side of his brain. His lungs felt full, but not of air, but of water—

Water!

He remembered a lot of water, he remembered being soaked in it. Drinking it. A lot of it in fact. Drinking it as he thrashed and begged for release, but someone had held him under, someone had held him _under_. Done it on purpose so that he could feel the water filling his lungs, the water filling every inch of him until there was no more space for oxygen, for air.

He started coughing, his hand clawing at his throat as he did. Trying to gulp down air, but he kept coughing, and liquid was coming out of his mouth. It was coming out in a stream even when he didn't cough, but that only made him gag. Tears brimmed in his eyes at the struggle he was going through, tears that soon started to flow down his cheeks as he kept on coughing and on gagging on the water that kept being ushered out of his lungs, out of his body.

The ache in his head didn't ease, no, it only got worse the more water he extracted from his lungs. It only seemed like the hot iron was getting warmer and warmer. But then it wasn't only his head, it was his neck, too. It was his chest, his stomach. It felt like that pressure was going to squash him down where he was laying.

Where was he laying?

The feeling was so unfamiliar, yet some of it felt familiar, too. He couldn't pinpoint where it felt familiar, and where it didn't.

The ground was cold, and wet, and he knew the water flowing beneath him wasn't only from what he had coughed up. His eyes opened but they weren't focused. The tears brimming in his eyes from the gagging that had happened blurring his vision. He could barely make out straight lines ahead of him, then silhouettes of people— of immortals.

His hand clawed at his throat as he kept coughing, gagging, but there was nothing coming out anymore. His lungs were empty and gulping down air only resulted in him choking on it. Coughing again.

It hurt so bad.

Every part of him hurt so bad he wanted it to end.

Why was he still alive? Hadn't he drowned? Hadn't he died and now he was in hell, suffering in the fields of punishment? Being tortured by simulating what drowning could feel like.

 _You've endured worse_ , a voice whispered in his brain. _And survived worse_.

He had.

The pain stopped all around, his body now feeling numb. Why had it stopped?

His arms started shaking, his legs. His whole body started shaking. Violently.

"My name is Percy Jackson," he mumbled, it was barely audible to his own ears. But he had to say it, if not to remind himself of who he was, who he had been. "And I'm a demigod."

He was a demigod.

Indeed he was. Not disownment could erase that title. He had been and always would be a demigod. Nothing would change that.

"My name is Percy Jackson," he mumbled again, his eyes closing tightly shut, his mind blocking out all the other noises. "Percy Jackson."

What had happened?

Why was he at the bottom of the ocean?

Why was he still breathing?

A man had held something against his throat. He'd been threatened. Then what had happened?

A searing noise tore through his mind.

What had happened?

They were on a boat. On a stupidly old and small boat. It had been raining. And he'd been soaked from it. He'd been cold, very cold. His nerves fried. And he'd been mad. Really mad.

But what happened after that?

A man had stood in front of him. A man that had haunted his darkest nightmares and lighted his best dreams. A man that had given him everything and in turn, taken it away from him. A man that had sentenced him to this life he led now. A man that had disowned him without so much as a second thought.

The noise grew, and he brought two hands to his ears, trying to block it out. It didn't do anything. His eyes tightly shut betrayed everything as tears kept on getting out. Tears of pure pain.

What had that man done to him?

The boat had broken, that much he knew. It had broken right where his head had been. And then the man had asked him something. Something cruel that had sparked open every signal of fear and hatred. And then he'd pushed him under. Water had engulfed him and then—

Atlantis.

That's where he was. Where he'd been headed. Where he had now reached.

He was on another quest, and this one had to start here, at the bottom of the ocean because— _The Sea Shall Bring Back The Framed_. He'd been framed, hadn't he? For a murder he hadn't done. And now he was at the bottom of the sea and that silhouette, standing there. That was the incorporation of the sea. The sea god himself.

The noise stopped ringing in his ears, and as he let his hands fall to the ground, he heard the clanking of metal on metal. He felt the bands around his wrists. Shackles. He'd been shackled and chained to something. He was bound, in his father— in Poseidon's dungeon at the bottom of the sea. He was a prisoner in Atlantis.

His eyes snapped open in one go, his pupils staring at the man behind the bars, sitting leisurely in a chair, looking like he'd just witnessed a show for all the world, not that he'd just witnessed what madness could easily look like.

Percy's mouth was dry. He was dry. Both inside and outside. His tears had dried up against his cheeks and were now sticky against his skin. He felt weak, weaker than he'd been before. Drained.

How wasn't he drowning?

"You're a monster," Percy said, his voice low and dead, no feeling whatsoever in it. His eyes hadn't left his father's since the moment he had opened them. "You knew, yet you did this to me."

It took all of his strength not to break down, not to huddle on himself and cry. Because if there is one thing he was afraid of the most was drowning, seventeen years of being immune to it had made it so that when he first experienced it, he'd been terrified. Terrified at the mere thought of having his own element used against him. Terrified when it had been, and he'd felt just how bad and horrifying it was to drown. To feel your lungs filling up with something that shouldn't be there. To feel yourself unable to breathe…

"You're a terrible person," he hissed, so much venom in it that it had Poseidon raise an eyebrow. "And I hope that when you go to hell. I hope you'll understand just how horrifying that was. How drowning feels like. Even for you. I hope you drown in hell."

"At least you've still got hope," Poseidon said, and it was his voice, that voice that snapped something in Percy. He wasn't sure what it was, only that it opened a door for anger and hatred to wash over all of his body. "And you've still got your tongue."

Percy gritted his teeth, preventing himself from saying a nasty come back that would cause him nothing but discomfort. Instead he opted in using whatever energy he had left to push himself onto his feet. He swayed as he did and his head ached, his hand moving up to steady himself. He got a good look at his bindings. Between his hands there was a two feet long chain and then from there another length of chain had been attached with a lock, and then locked onto a hook the came from the middle of the cell on the floor.

He took a few steps towards the bars, and gripped them tightly, keeping his weight aloft by only that.

His eyes boring holes in his father's he asked, "So I'm your prisoner now?"

"I'd say the word 'guest' is more suitable," Poseidon said calmly, not letting any of the words that Percy had said get to him.

Percy chuckled darkly. "Guest, you say?" he asked, as his head hit the bars and it remained there, his eyes getting a haunted and faraway look. "Then why the fuck, am I chained in your dungeon?" The venom leaking through his words would have sent lesser men running in no time, but Poseidon didn't budge, he only grinned.

"Precautions," he said calmly. "Surely you can understand why I'm wary of you. After all that's been done to you —most of it because of me— I wouldn't put it past you to try to kill me."

The young man laughed. He _laughed_. Because that had been hilarious for so many reasons. He wasn't in the cell because his Poseidon hated him. He wasn't in the cell because he was a prisoner. No, he was in the cell, chained up, because his father was _afraid_ of him.

"You," Percy said when he stopped laughing. "Afraid of me? When we're at the bottom of the ocean. When we're in _your_ home. Why thank you for thinking I'm that good."

"You're better than good, Perseus," Poseidon said. "And you know that as good as you know that we need you for this war that's coming."

Percy smirked, of course that was his Poseidon's only problem. The war. Not that he'd ruined his life. No, why should care about that. No, the only thing any god cared about was the safety of their thrones.

"It's always about my strength, isn't it?" Percy said bitterly. "You want me to lend it to you, to help you, don't you? Well me going to that damned harbour should be enough to make you realise that I'm on your side. That I _am_ going to help you. But then I'm out. This time for good. No need for this absurdness."

"Son—"

"I'm not your son," Percy hissed, baring his teeth like a wolf would. "Don't call me that, don't ever call me that!"

Something flashed in the god's eyes, something too fast for Percy to decipher. But the god spoke nonetheless. "You need to understand a few things before you go back to the surface. Things that happened in the past that hurt you. Things I did."

Percy's confusion was written all across his face, and it was enough for Poseidon to continue speaking.

"You're not here for me to know that you're working with us," Poseidon said with a sigh. "This has nothing to do with that. This could as well be for my own selfish reasons—and because... But you need to understand why you're still alive."

"What?"

Was the god finally going to explain why the weird stuff that had happened in the past four years happened, why he was still alive and the god's only found out now.

"Son—"

Percy clawed at the bars before he punched them, effectively denting it and cracking knuckles, breaking them.

"Call me son, one more time?" he yelled. "And see how I bring down this whole damned castle and rip you head off your neck for it! You're not my father! You lost the right to call me that the moment you disowned me! And stripped me of everything! You took everything from me." His voice died to a whisper. "You took everything," he repeated. "And I hate you."

He started shaking again. He grabbed the wrist of his broken hand to steady himself. His back hit the bars and he slid down, down until he was sitting on the ground floor. He lay there as the shaking ascended. His eyes slipped closed and he put his head on his knees, still shaking. He'd snapped.

When he heard the click of the cell door being opened his eyes snapped up, and they lingered on the person entering. No weapons on him, his features turned to sad and disappointed. Poseidon walked towards him with confident steps.

"Stay away from me," Percy hissed. "Or I'm going to kill you. Even if I have to do it with my bare hands."

Poseidon understood the threat, and took it with a nod. He motioned for the two guards at the door of the cell to leave, them going without so much as an objection. The door remained ajar, and Poseidon summoned a chair on which he sat on where he had stood.

"I know you didn't kill your brother," Poseidon said slowly, he didn't let Percy's glare stop him, nor did he give time to the demigod to answer. "As cruel as I was, disowning you saved your life."

"Saved my life?" Percy repeated with a smirk. "Right, that's why Zeus shot me with his lightning, why I was hunted throughout the whole country for months. Not having my powers anymore sure as hell helped me out during that time. But you know what, I don't care."

"Why do you think you're alive?" the god asked softly.

"Don't," Percy warned. "Stop."

He didn't want to hear it. Not now, not ever. Because if it ended up making sense then he'd have to forgive him, he would forgive him. And he'd have no one left to blame for all of the misfortune and bad luck that led his life in circles. He didn't want to forgive him. Or to see him as someone other than the bastard who took everything from him. He didn't want to see him as anything else. He wanted to keep him in that section of his mind where all those he hated were. And he wanted to keep him at the top of that list, next to Tartarus.

"Why do you think that bolt didn't kill you?" Poseidon ignored him.

"Stop," Percy said. "Just stop."

"Why do you think that Zeus didn't realise you weren't in the underworld?" he asked. "Why you managed to stay right under our noses without us realising?"

Percy leaped to his feet and pounced like a lion would a prey. His hands enclosed around Poseidon's neck as he was sent toppling over his chair and crashing down on his back. Percy knew where he should pinch so to cut off the god's breathing, to knock him out, but he didn't. Instead he let go and brought his fist down on Poseidon's face.

"Fight back!" he yelled. "Fight back you bastard!"

Poseidon did when the third fist was crashing down. He grabbed Percy's wrist in a bone crushing grip and held it there. When the other fist —the one with broken knuckles— came crashing down he grabbed it in the same way, crushing the bones in the wrist.

A sob escaped Percy's lips, and his head bowed down as his shoulders shook. His wrists held aloft because of Poseidon. The sea god looked at Percy with tenderness and sympathy. But he knew better than to let go of his wrists, knowing that for sure, even though they were broken the young man would try anything to hit him. Just as he was thinking that, the Avenger started fighting him, trying to yank his arms free, kneeing him in the stomach.

Poseidon called for his godly strength to flip themselves around, having Percy crash on his back, his head hitting the floor with a heavy thud. His hands pushed against the ground by the sheer force of the sea god, the two feet of chain digging in his chest. He then felt the weight of the god on top of his torso, and then there was so much pressure on his legs, and they were wet again. As if the water was holding him down.

He saw black for a moment before he regained his senses just as Poseidon said, "You have to listen to me—"

"I don't want to listen to a word you have to say," Percy hissed, his head moving up, his teeth gritted and bared as he made it clear where he stood. "Not a word!"

"You have to understand—"

"Are you deaf, old man?" Percy demanded. "I don't want to. Leave your explanations for someone who cares."

Percy hated the look Poseidon gave him next. One of pity and pure disappointment. He tried to move his legs, tried to use them to flip him off. But the water was still putting so much pressure on them… He tried yanking his arms free of his grasp but it was an iron grip the sea god had. And he couldn't get out. But he kept trying.

"What happened to you?" Poseidon whispered. "To the boy who always smiled, to the boy who put everyone before himself, who smiled and laughed—"

"You killed him!" Percy spat out, saliva flying. "You along with everyone else. That child is dead. Has been, for _years_ now."

Poseidon steadied his grip. "I don't believe that," he said and he let go of his wrists, but Percy didn't have one heartbeat before his grip was replaced by unforgiving water. Poseidon touched his chest. "He's still in there."

"Let me go," Percy hissed. "Get off me."

Poseidon was winning, he was getting his way, and Percy hated it, hated himself for being weak enough to let him crumble his walls. His defences. And he knew that Poseidon knew he was managing. Especially when the sea god grinned.

"What? You're not even going to let me explain myself?" Poseidon asked rhetorically.

Percy hissed low, "I don't care what you have to say. You bastard, get off me."

"Well I care," Poseidon said, grabbing Percy's chin and making sure the demigod was looking at him. "So you're going to listen, until I'm done."

But the young Avenger was still fighting, and he wouldn't have lost until he stopped. And he wouldn't stop. Not until he couldn't move anymore. Or every bone in his body was wrecked.

"My brother knew your strength, and he needed to get rid of it," Poseidon started. "It was a threat—

"You need to get rid of that, brother," Zeus said from beside him.

They were leisurely sitting on their throne in the Thorne Room of Olympus. They'd been called to talk about the one and only demigod, son of Poseidon who was causing havoc and chaos during his sleep.

"That's what he can cause during his sleep," Zeus added, standing up. "Imagine what he could do when he put his mind into it."

"He's in shock" Poseidon simply said, his voice low and unthreatening.

"He's dangerous!" Zeus said. "And if Tartarus managed to do more than the boy is letting on then we're in deep shit. We cannot risk someone with his state of mind to walk around unchecked. You have to take out his powers."

Poseidon was on his feet. "I will do no such thing," he said to his brother. The other Olympians around them shifted uncomfortably, knowing exactly how simple arguments between the two brothers could end up as.

"You don't strip him off his powers, and the boy dies."

"Is that a threat?"

"Very much," Zeus said, his features unyielding. "We cannot let someone with that much power walk around, not when he could pose as a threat to the gods. To Olympus!"

Poseidon barked out a laugh. "You really think that my son, Percy Jackson, would act against Olympus? He's our most powerful ally, he would never."

"You don't know, what the god of the pit did to him," Zeus snarled. "How much he influences his actions. Would he rise, we do not know what Perseus would do—"

"Exactly," Poseidon interrupted. "You're jumping to conclusions that my son is a traitor."

"I'm eliminating the threat before it is too late!" Zeus boomed, then his voice lowered dangerously. "One act, Poseidon. One step out of line and he's out. Or I'm killing him with my own Master Bolt."

"Then what of your own children, Thalia and Jason? Shouldn't they be checked off too? Why only mine?"

"Because my offsprings did not go through the same stress as yours did, they didn't unlock those powers from deep within them." He eyes his brother with a death glare before he added, "And I didn't give them an endless well."

Poseidon kept his chin high and thoughts together, even as Zeus stretched out his hand and said, "One step. The council is with me on this, brother. One step and you disown him. He's out."

"Disown?" Poseidon asked, eyeing the outstretched hand. "That's not the same as drowning up that well. You can't ask me to disown my son—"

"Or I will kill him, the majority is behind that too," Zeus said.

Poseidon still didn't shake his hand. "And when exactly did you decide all of this?"

"Before you arrived." Zeus' eyes flickered to his hand.

The sea god hesitantly shook his hand, sending up a prayer to anyone who was listening that his son did not step out of line.

Percy's features didn't show his emotions, which was good since he didn't know what to feel, except anger. The anger was always there, present and lingering.

"You should have let him kill me," he hissed at last, anger fully taking over. "Better than being _hunted_ down like a rabid animal. Did you really think I'd prefer that and your betrayal, than death? Huh?"

It was Poseidon's turn to snap, "Do you really think I enjoyed that?" he asked the restating man. "For six months, hearing nothing but how Artemis was failing to catch you. And then after six months, seeing him break his own promise. We had a deal that you would live, Perseus. And he broke it. Did you never wonder why that lighting bolt didn't kill you? Never wondered why death was there that day, but he didn't reap you?"

Percy was silent, his breathing heavy but other than that, he was still, he had even stopped flexing.

"Why of course I made a deal with my brother," Poseidon said. "Actually he came to me with the plan. When Zeus sent that lightning bolt towards you. It was our power combined, it was our shield that saved your sorry ass."

"I was still hit with it," Percy said, even though he knew he should have kept quiet. "It still hurt as hell."

"But you didn't die, and Zeus thought you were dead. And when Hades denied him access to talk to your soul, no one thought twice about it. The scent I took from you, the powers I took, that made sure that you could go on with life from then on. That you could start over, without fearing the gods. Fearing that they'd get a hold of you again. Because even now, I wouldn't be able to know, that you were in here if I was upstairs. The disownment was nothing but a ticket out."

"A ticket out," Percy repeated in a whisper. "A ticket out, after I was blasted off Mount Olympus. After I was hunted to the end of the earth by trained killers. After being betrayed, by the two people I cared most about, the two people I had never dreamed would betray me—"

"It was only for the best—"

"For the best?" Perch barked out a laugh. "What was for the best? Me being gone? Or you betraying me. Breaking me?"

Tears left his eyes again, small shiny droplets of water.

"And you needed me in a dungeon, chained up, to tell me that? You couldn't have done so sooner?" The bitter resentment was clear and evident in his voice.

"How many times have you tried to hurt me, and kill me, Perseus?" Poseidon asked slowly. "Precautions."

"You're a god," Percy spat out. "I'm not even a demigod. You've got me pinned down without even holding me. I could die with a simple thought of your mind. I'm nothing compared to you, just a mortal human."

"You're not nothing, son—"

Percy snapped his teeth and tried to lounge for the god again, but the pressure the water had on his limbs was far too great. "I am not your son!"

"Yes you are."

Percy's world stopped for a moment. No, no he wasn't. He'd been disowned. He'd been disowned in front of the whole council. He'd been disowned for three years now. He wasn't going to be claimed again now.

Claimed.

"No," Percy said. "I don't—"

" _And Again He Will Be Claimed_ ," Poseidon said softly, much to Percy's dismay. He started shaking his head. "I claim you, Perseus Jackson. You _are_ my son."

"No," Percy said.

One simple word, but it tore the sea god open. What had he done all those years ago to leave his son in such despair, why had he done that? The venom with which that lone word was coated…

"Leave," Percy said defeated, his head laying down softly, his muscles going slack, his whole body going limp under Poseidon. "Leave me here to rot. Please."

What had he done? Poseidon asked himself at hearing the broken tone. How could he have done this to his son, to his pride.

"You were my brightest pride, Perseus—"

"Then why did you leave me?" the demigod asked, such bitterness and resentment. "Why did you leave me alone?"

Poseidon bowed his head, and stood. Only once he was out of the cell did he lift the pressure of the water on Percy's limbs and said, "I made a big mistake."

Percy didn't move from his position, and didn't offer any type of response either. When Poseidon was sure the demigod wasn't going to respond he hung his head low and saw himself out of the dungeons.

He wasn't going to sleep tonight.

-.-

Frank had said, screw the law, and pulled a Percy by stealing a car. He silently told the owner they they'd bring it back, although he knew he never would. This time around, he was the one driving while Jason laid down on his back in the back of the car.

It was somewhere in the night that the two demigods finally arrived at Camp Jupiter, both of them immediately getting ambushed by both Piper and Hazel. The daughter of Aphrodite had immediately gone into a fussy mode at seeing that her boyfriend was not all okay and held some new but fading scars.

They'd demanded to know exactly what happened, but they'd been waved off by Frank, who told them they should discuss this with more people. Or at least with Reyna and Annabeth as well. Reyna being elder praetor of camp and Annabeth being the one person they could use the brain of.

So that's how they found themselves, in the middle of the night sitting around a round table with coffee mugs in their hands as Frank told the tale and Jason added some helpful details the son of Mars had missed.

"So, Damasen, just gave you his weapon?" Reyna asked him at the end. "Why would he do that? Doesn't he fight for Tartarus?"

"No," Annabeth said from her seat. "He's the Bane of Ares, which means he's the opposite. Whilst Ares is a brute who loves war and bloodshed, Damasen doesn't, and he will gladly stay out of it. And also, when we were in Tartarus —the first time— I got the understanding that Tartarus had no love for the Giant, and vice versa."

"So he's helping us, in other words," Hazel said. "By giving us a weapon."

"But why give us a weapon?" Piper asked. "We have enough to arm both camps, why not keep it to himself."

Annabeth's mind was thinking, and it was thinking fast. "Maybe it does something ours don't. Maybe we should also look at the prophecy, because if you, Frank, should wield that weapon, along with eleven others… there's a line in the prophecy that holds to that: _Twelve Are The Weapons To Be Wield_. The lance is one of them, and you have to wield it. But to do what?"

"He mentioned that I should use it against _him_ ," Frank said.

"I'm only guessing that with 'him', he means Tartarus," Reyna suggested. "Not someone else, a third party that wants to get involved in this game of ours."

"Fourth," Annabeth corrected. "The Avengers are the third party."

"Right," Reyna relented. "Still, let's say that these weapons are meant to be used against him, we still don't know what they do, and why they would be different than other ones. And, what the other eleven ones are."

"Would you mind if I took the weapon for some time?" Annabeth asked Frank. "So that I can study it and try to figure out exactly what this could mean."

Frank didn't have to think about it to know his answer. Actually, he was more than happy to give something to work on to the daughter of Athena. If only so that she would have her mind off the son of Poseidon who could be facing unthinkable things at the very moment. He just hoped he was okay. As if reading his train of thoughts, Annabeth asked, "Do you have any idea what Poseidon is going to do to him for the next month?"

There was no nodding, only shaking of heads.

"Whatever he intends to do," Jason said. "He doesn't want anyone knowing. As far as I figured out he took him to Atlantis, far away from Olympus."

-.-

When the two Avengers had returned home the day after Percy had disappeared from their visible radar, they were met with the questioning gazes of their team mates, their eyes lingering behind them waiting for the demigod to come off the jet. He never did.

They quickly explained what had happened, the two demigods, and then set the tape Percy had left son they could get their own understanding of exactly what was going on and how apparently dangerous this all was. Little did they know it would be the last time they heard of him for a very long time.

.

 **HEy, so this was longer than it usually is, but not the longest yet. It was over 6,000 words so I do hope you enjoyed.**

 **Like always review and favorite this story, it would mean a lot.**

 **If there are any questions or doubts about this chapter and what was _revealed_ please tell me, either on the review section or in private and I WILL answer back to you and give you an explanation. And if you're on a guest account then I will try my best to reply to it on the next chapter. **

**.**

 **Preview of the next chapter:**

 _"Five years ago," Ross started. "I had a heart attack." Way to make an introduction. "I dropped right in the middle of my backswing. Turned out it was the best round in May life, because after thirteen hours of surgery and a triple bypass…I found something forty years in the army had never taught me: Perspective."_

 _Here we go._

 _"The world owes the Avengers an unplayable debt," Ross continued before anyone could comment on it. "You fought for us…protected us, risked your lives…but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some…who would prefer the word, vigilantes."_

 _Nailed it._

 _"And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?" Natasha asked, crossing one leg over the other, looking nothing less than professional._

 _"How about, dangerous?" Ross said with no remorse. "What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals…who routinely ignore sovereign borders…and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?"_

 _He raised his hand with a remote toward a screen and the event that happened with Loki played on it. The big monsters that had come out of that wormhole above this very Tower._

 _"New York," Ross said before he clicked another button on the screen and the scene changed. "Washington DC…Sokovia…Lagos."_

 _"Okay, that's enough," Steve broke through, his voice stern and controlled. Beneath, a roaring ocean begging to be set free._

 _._

 **Aye, I can already say that the next few chapters will cover a more boring arch to this story, the whole 'planning' and all. I myself are finding it troubling and hard to write the chapter, but I'll do my best to have it done for two weeks.**

 **Oh and there wont be another of those problems with the iPad not uploading my things to FanFiction bcs I got a laptop, which works magnificently and yeah...**

 **Stay cool I guess... and my the fates bless the poor souls of those of us who already started school...XD**

 **Hunter**


	14. Tension Rising

**I again apologize about what happened, in the past...month, I mean, I'm sure you either know what I'm talking about or you're clueless, but I hope either way it's fine now...**

 **This chapter, I tried, I really did, to make it interesting in a way, but I don't believe it is that much.**

 **In case you're new or smth, idek, I update this fic every two weeks on Sundays, so yeah...**

 **And for those that have been asking about the child, the end of this chapter should clear up what I'm doing with it...**

 **Though anyways, please enjoy...**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _"Leave," Percy said defeated, his head laying down softly, his muscles going slack, his whole body going limp under Poseidon. "Leave me here to rot. Please."_

 _What had he done? Poseidon asked himself at hearing the broken tone. How could he have done this to his son, to his pride._

 _"You were my brightest pride, Perseus—"_

 _"Then why did you leave me?" the demigod asked, such bitterness and resentment. "Why did you leave me alone?"_

 _Poseidon bowed his head, and stood. Only once he was out of the cell did he lift the pressure of the water on Percy's limbs and said, "I made a big mistake."_

 _Percy didn't move from his position, and didn't offer any type of response either. When Poseidon was sure the demigod wasn't going to respond he hung his head low and saw himself out of the dungeons._

 _He wasn't going to sleep tonight._

 _._

 _"Would you mind if I took the weapon for some time?" Annabeth asked Frank. "So that I can study it and try to figure out exactly what this could mean."_

 _Frank didn't have to think about it to know his answer. Actually, he was more than happy to give something to work on to the daughter of Athena. If only so that she would have her mind off the son of Poseidon who could be facing unthinkable things at the very moment. He just hoped he was okay. As if reading his train of thoughts, Annabeth asked, "Do you have any idea what Poseidon is going to do to him for the next month?"_

 _There was no nodding, only shaking of heads._

 _"Whatever he intends to do," Jason said. "He doesn't want anyone knowing. As far as I figured out he took him to Atlantis, far away from Olympus."_

 _._

 _When the two Avengers had returned home the day after Percy had disappeared from their visible radar, they were met with the questioning gazes of their team mates, their eyes lingering behind them waiting for the demigod to come off the jet. He never did._

 _They quickly explained what had happened, the two demigods, and then set the tape Percy had left son they could get their own understanding of exactly what was going on and how apparently dangerous this all was. Little did they know it would be the last time they heard of him for a very long time._

.

 **X-X-Tensio Orientem-X-X**

( _Tension Rising_ )

-.-.-

4th January

-.-.-

As he rounded the last corner before he'd meet the Tower, Steve brought his thoughts back on the two people he was hell bent on finding again. There was Percy, who Tony and Clint had said had gone on his suicidal mission almost a month ago, and still no word was heard from the demigod. He'd seen the tape the young man had left behind and he, like everyone else who was concerned, had taken out his anger on something he was good at, punching sandbags.

They had found Percy's car to be moving around, but once they tracked it down they came to the understanding that Percy was not the one driving the car. That he had given it away, fully aware that he was not going back to the harbor of Mackenzie Bay. That lead had led the Avengers to more anger. And to find new ways to retaliate.

But after S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen, Percy was only one of his problems. Bucky, was the other.

He had always thought his friend to be dead. The fall from that train must have killed him. Should have killed him. But it hadn't. And even if he ever thought that he hadn't died in the fall, he knew for sure that he would have been an old grandpa by now.

Yet, there he had been. Young and unnaturally strong. Hydra's puppet.

He should have known that whatever they had done to him in the war camp, it had stayed and changed him. He should have known and made sure his best friend never got in their hands again because now… now Bucky didn't seem to even recognize him. Recognize his own name.

 _Who the hell's Bucky?_ he had asked him, completely unaware that it was himself. And the time after that, on those helicarrier… he had almost killed him. Yet, here he was, running through the busy streets of New York back towards the Avengers Tower.

Ultron had come, and that had kept Steve busy from searching for his lost friend. But as soon as that mess was down he had taken back his search for his friend. And now there was the matter of Percy Jackson going missing. On his suicidal and stupid mission. Steve just hoped that Jason's word was something to trust. Hoping that he hasn't sold his friend and companion to his enemies. Hoping he wouldn't wound up dead.

He felt guilt, using the distraction of his friends whilst they searched for Percy as a good cover so he could search for his own friend. But Bucky had always been there for him. Always. Always had his back when things went south. Getting him back on his feet…it was the least Steve could do after all.

He didn't need to scan badges or even say his name, the security men at the front door let him through without so much as a second look. Paparazzi swarmed him immediately, yet he didn't glance at them as they pestered him with questions. He simply kept on walking forward until he reached the elevator and the security kept the journalists away as he entered.

-.-

"11 Wakandans were among those killed during a confrontation between the Avengers and a group of mercenaries in Lagos, Nigeria, last month," a news anchor said fromm the Tv, Wanda watching it from her bed. "The traditionally reclusive Wakandans were on an outreach mission in Lagos when the attack occurred."

The screen turned to see the king of Wakanda, T'Chaka speaking at a conference, "Our people's blood is spilled on foreign soil. Not only because of the actions of criminals, but by the indifference of those pledged to stop them. Victory at the expense of the innocent, is no victory at all."

The voice of the kind drowned down as the one of the news anchor spoke up again, "The Wakanda king went on to…"

"What legal authority does an enhanced individual like Wanda Maximoff have to operate in Nigeria?"

Steve came in the room then, looking like he knew exactly what she had been listening to, his hair wet after having taken a shower. He grabbed the remote and turned of the television. Then leaned in the doorway.

"It's my fault," Wanda told him, guilt lacing her words.

"That's not true," Steve said. It wasn't. Stuff like this happened all the time. War didn't come without casualties. He knew that first hand.

"Turn the Tv back on," she challenged. "They're being very specific."

Steve shook his head. "I should've clocked that vim vest long before you had to deal with it," eh said as he walked over to her. "Rum love said 'Bucky'…and all of a sudden I was a sixteen year old kid again, in Brooklyn." He sat down beside her on the bed. "And people died. It's on me."

"It's on both of us," she said at last, not giving him full blame. Knowing it wasn't fully his fault, but also knowing she couldn't make him think otherwise.

"This job…" Steve started. "We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody. But if we can't find a way to live with that…next time…maybe nobody gets saved."

He was stopped from saying more as the Vision walked through the wall and materialised in the room, earning a jump scare from Wanda.

"Vis!" she yelled. "We talked about this."

"Yes," Vision relented. "But the door was open so I assumed that…" He gestured at the open door as if saying, 'I could come in.' "Captain Rogers wished to know when Mr. Stark was arriving."

Steve dipped his head. "Thank you," he said. "We'll be right down."

"I'll…" Vision seemed uncomfortable and awkward as he spoke the next words. "…use the door. Oh, and apparently, he's brought a guest."

Steve's brows furrowed in surprise. "We know who it is?"

"The Secretary of State."

-.-

All of the Avengers at Stark Tower then had all stopped whatever they were doing in order to then meet with Secretary Ross for whatever reason Tony had brought him in. Whatever it was, Steve knew it wasn't going to be any fun whatsoever and that it had no doubt something to do with what happened in Nigeria.

Yet, he had willingly changed clothes and went to the meeting room where all the other Avengers sat waiting around a rectangular table, Secretary Ross standing at the head.

"Five years ago," Ross started. "I had a heart attack." Way to make an introduction. "I dropped right in the middle of my backswing. Turned out it was the best round in May life, because after thirteen hours of surgery and a triple bypass…I found something forty years in the army had never taught me: Perspective."

Here we go.

"The world owes the Avengers an unplayable debt," Ross continued before anyone could comment on it. "You fought for us…protected us, risked your lives…but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some…who would prefer the word, vigilantes."

Nailed it.

"And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?" Natasha asked, crossing one leg over the other, looking nothing less than professional.

"How about, dangerous?" Ross said with no remorse. "What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals…who routinely ignore sovereign borders…and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?"

He raised his hand with a remote toward a screen and the event that happened with Loki played on it. The big monsters that had come out of that wormhole above this very Tower.

"New York," Ross said before he clicked another button on the screen and the scene changed. "Washington DC…Sokovia…Lagos."

"Okay, that's enough," Steve broke through, his voice stern and controlled. Beneath, a roaring ocean begging to be set free.

But Ross, although he stopped the clips, continued talking. "For the past four years you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the government of the world can no longer tolerate," he said, his words clipped and cold.

"But I think we have a solution," he said as he laid a thick document on the table. "The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries…it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organisation. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a Untied Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems necessary."

Steve wasn't liking what he was hearing. "The Avengers were formed to make the world a better place," he said. "I feel we've done that."

"Tell me, Captain," Ross said. "Do you know where Thor and Banner are right now? And what of Gladiator, who is certainly not here and we don't even know his face, his real name."

"And I'm guessing you wish to know that of him?" Steve asked him, his gaze like steel.

Secretary Ross dipped his head to the side and nodded. "Indeed we do. Someone with his powers must be known if only for the people's safety. If I misplace a couple of thirty megaton nukes…you can bet there'd be consequences. Compromises. Reassurance. That's how the world works. Believe me, this is middle ground."

"So," Rhodes sad. "There are contingencies."

"Six days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords." Steve glanced at Tony, something like betrayal shining in his eyes. "Talk it over."

"And what if we come to a decision you don't like?" Natasha asked, looking just as composed as she before.

"Then you retire."

The smile she stifled was a fake one, and everyone in the room knew that.

-.-

They hadn't taken it well, to say the least. Sprawled on the couches of the party deck of the Avenger tower they kept on discussing what most of them knew would one day severe them apart.

"Secretary Ross had a congressional Medal of Honor," Rhodes said. "Which is one more than you have.

"So let's say we agree to this thing," Sam countered. "How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?"

Rhodes made an incredulous face towards Sam. "A hundred-and-seventeen countries want to sign this. A hundred-and-seventeen, Sam, and you're just like, 'No, that's cool. We got it'."

Sam crossed his arms, clearly pissed off and aware that all the eyes in the room were on them. "How long are you going to play both sides?" There was a flick of eyebrows rising here and there throughout the Avengers.

"I have an equation," Vision said, opening his eyes and taking his finger away from his head, as if he'd been thinking and indeed, calculating. Or just going through whatever it was his brain was made out of.

"Oh, this will clear it up," Sam mocked, but Vision didn't detect the hint of aggressiveness in the tone.

"In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period of time, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate."

"Are you saying it's our fault?" Steve asked, all to accusingly, if only because he was being accused.

"I'm saying," Vision started. "That there may be a causality. Our very strength invited challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict…breeds catastrophe. Oversight… Oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand."

James Rhodes propped his elbows on his thighs as he sat up straighter. "Boom," he said as he made a sign as if smoke floating in air with his hands.

"Tony," Natasha calls him out from her seat. "You're being uncharacteristically non-hyper-verbal."

"It's because he's already made up his mind," Steve said, slight disappointment coating his words.

"Boy you know me so well," he said as he stood up from his lounging chair. He winced as he took a step. "Actually, I'm nursing an electromagnetic headache. That's what's going on, Cap. It's just pain. It's discomfort. Who's putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?"

He fished out his phone and touched a few spots. All that the others saw was Tony playing with his phone, although there was that aura that said _I'm talking now, and you will listen,_ which everyone notes and thus anticipated. They were proved with a photo. A photo of a young man smiling appeared on an holographic screen.

"Oh that's Charles Spencer, by the way. He's a great kid. Computer engineering degree, three point six GPA. Had a floor level gig at Intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul…before he parked it behind a desk. See the world. Maybe be of service. Charlie didn't want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn't go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where, Sokovia."

Those that had been present on that horrible day had the decency to look guilty. They shifted uncomfortably in their seat, knowing where Tony was going with this. In fact he went on with what he was saying, not giving them the chance to reply to what he was saying.

"He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won't know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass." He headed over to the counter and opened up a pill, dropped it in a cup of coffee and took a sip. Then he turned around, to face the others as he folded his arms. "There's no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever that form takes, I'm game. If we can't accept limitations, if we're boundary-less, we're no better than the bad guys."

"Then what about Percy?" Natasha asked him carefully. "And his whole race of half-gods. Do they need to be put in check as well."

He turned to face her. "Those half-bloods—of whatever they're called, are not our problem. They've got _gods_ keeping them in line. And I'm sure that's fine. As for Percy…as much as I love the guy…he avoided those same gods for four years. Maybe he should be put in check."

"What about the primordial god rising, then?" Natasha asked, seemingly not done with her 'interrogation'. "We're in that prophecy. Are we going to have to ask permission for that, too?"

Tony hesitated, if only because he hadn't been ready for that question, and therefore didn't yet have an answer to it. In reality he wasn't sure. After that disturbing encounter with Spencer's mother he had always had the nagging sensation in his head, that they had to be put in check, that was why he had decided to go the Secretary of State.

The thought of that prophecy perhaps had an impact on that decision, the fact that if something was going to break through people —innocent people— _were_ going to get caught in the cross-fire. He wasn't so sure he was going to manage being held responsible for many deaths much longer. As good as victory always seemed, it never came without casualties, and a price to pay.

"Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up," Steve said, bringing Tony back on the thought of Charles Spencer.

"Who said we're giving up?" He wasn't sure anymore he wasn't, he didn't _want_ to be held responsible for people dying anymore. He didn't _want_ to see his hands red or be told it was his fault their son died.

"We are if we're not taking responsibility for our actions," Steve said, calmly. "This document just shifts the blame."

Rhodes stood up. "I'm sorry Steve," he said. "That…that is dangerously arrogant. This is the United Nations we're talking about. It's not the World Security Council, it's not S.H.I.E.L.D., it's not HYDRA.

"No," Steve agreed. "But it's run by people with agendas, and agendas change."

"That's good," Stark stepped back in. "That's why I'm here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down and stopped manufacturing."

"Tony, you chose to do that," Steve countered. "If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go, and they don't let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own."

"If we don't do this now, it's gonna be done to us later. That's a fact. That won't be pretty."

"You're saying they'll come for me," Wanda said, her voice cold and emotionless, hiding the rising panic that was sure to be coursing through her.

"We would protect you," Vision said without hesitation.

Natasha was thinking on something else though. "Maybe Tony's right," she said. "If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer. If we take it off…"

Sam scowled. "Aren't you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?"

"I'm just," she said as her eyes got a faraway look. "Reading the terrain. We have made some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back."

"Focus up," Tony said, snapping out of his trance. "I'm sorry, did I just mishear you or did you agree with me?"

"Oh, I want to take it back now," Natasha said.

It seemed that even in the heat of an argument some teasing and mocking could always find its way through to them.

"No, no, no," Tony said quickly. "You can't retract it. Thank you. Unprecedented. Okay, case closed - I win."

A little notification sound popped up from Steve's phone and he stared down at it. He read it, the words displayed carefully on the screen before him, 'She's gone. In her sleep.'

Five small calculated words that made his vision spin for a moment. She was gone. The woman he had loved back in his time, the woman he had promised a dance he had never given her.

"I have to go," he abruptly said as he stood up and went down stairs, taking the first flight of stair and stopping at the base. His head bowed as he leaned against the bannister.

—x—

Annabeth was sick of reading. She wasn't sure she would have ever said that, but she was sick of reading. When Frank and Jason had returned and explained what had happened she had immediately barricaded herself in her house. She only left to collect more books from the library of New Athens. More books that she could read to figure out what Damasen had meant.

 _'You're the son of my Bane, you must wield it,' Franks said the giant has said. 'Along with eleven others. You fight him.'_

She had understood one part of that message, but the why, she was still searching for. Damasen was part of the main twelve giants, the ones born from Gaea and Tartarus herself. She'd fought a good deal herself but that was not important. All she knew is the lines, ' _You must wield it, along with eleven others_ ', fit with the line of the prophecy, _Twelve are the weapons to be wield_ , for what she still didn't know. But, she knew something else, twelve weapons to be wielded, twelve giants, one which had given his weapon willingly and told them it had to be wielded against _him._

Annabeth had shared her idea that the twelve weapons from the twelve giants had to be wielded agains him, against Tartarus, and that was for some, unknown reason. They had run scan over scan over the lance, Damasen had given Frank, and found nothing wrong with it, or something different than their own weapons, except for power thrumming in its core. Pure power.

Frank had taken to train with it like he hadn't ever, and actually, surprisingly, he had become quite unbeatable with it in his hands, it was like it gave _him_ power and _helped_ him, and when he fought with it, sparred with other demigods, he danced like he never had with other previous weapons. The lance was but an extension of his arm, like Riptide had been for Percy, and the dance produced when wielded was beautiful.

Yet, she had only seen him use it once throughput the course of the past month, and that had been when she had told the leaders of the two camps of her speculations over the use of the weapons. Then she had again barricaded herself into her house and taken up another book about the history of the giants and started reading. Reading for all she was worth to see if perhaps, they could find the chink the armor of their enemies.

Even if they did find the answer thy were looking for, even if they did manage to steal all twelve weapons from twelve giants, and perhaps learn to wield them like Frank wielded that lance, what was to say they wouldn't simply be stolen back from their respective owners. What was to say that their anticipation to kill all demigods wouldn't simply rise and then they'd wipe them off the face of the earth in one mighty swoop.

There was also the factor of, _who would wield which weapon_ , that throbbed at the back of her mind. And also on how they were going to _find_ these weapons when they hadn't even _seen_ one giant, except for Damasen. Because, what is the giants decided to attack all together and all at once, then they were surely doomed and would never manage to _steal_ their weapons and defeat Tartarus.

Throughout the whole month, she had been so deep in the books she had been studying that she had neglected her son so much, that Calypso had come in one day —she hadn't even noticed— and taken the babe away with her to care for him since Annabeth looked unable to.

The babe, or child perhaps since he was over four years old and was no infant. When Percy had come out to be alive instead of dead, when everyone had seen that he was still alive and that she had been right, they had immediately all known, that, would they tell him that a little Percy two point o was waiting at camp to meet a father he'd never seen, the son of Poseidon would have come running.

That would have probably been a simple way of getting him to join their cause, to help them in what they knew could be all their downfalls. Yet, Annabeth had begged them not to. She would have gotten to her knees to just make sure that _she'd_ be the one to tell him about Charlie, under he own circumstances and when he was listening to her. She wouldn't yell it out to him or use him as a card so Percy would forgive her for the child. No, she would explain her actions, when he'd be willing to listen, and Charlie's existence would merely be proof that she wasn't lying, but she wouldn't use her son for her own cause.

Her mother, had immediately agreed with Annabeth, although for very different reasons, and they were because if the son of Poseidon was for real going to be helping them, it would have to have been because he _wanted_ to, not because he would have felt forced to since his biological son was with them. No, telling him he had a little child would only make him biased and they couldn't have that from him, they had trust him like he had to trust them. And they couldn't trust him if he was helping them only for the child's safety.

Her thoughts were not helping her understand what she was reading, that's when she focused back on the words of the book she held in her laps, a mug of coffee in her hands. _Crafted from their body, powered by their souls_.

Could it be…

There was no nothing that was completely immortal. Nothing could leave forever, there was always something that prevented pure power over immortal life, or power. Always a loophole that usually caused for said beings to become monsters. The gods weren't as eternal as they claimed to be. Would their seats of power be destroyed, would they then be beheaded…it didn't take anything else for they to fade after that. With nothing to hold them anchored to life anymore…

The weapons of the giants were meant to be used against Tartarus, as they could be used against Gaea for the same purpose of destruction. Twelve weapons _crafted from their bodies,_ which could pierce their _souls_. It was their power, used against them…

She wasn't sure but, she may have just change the tide of this mess. That was her thoughts as she raced outside of her house towards the camp to warn the others.

.

 **Did she though? Change the tide of that mess?**

 **Please, tell me.**

 **Oh and perhaps later on there will be polls to decide where this story is going to go.**

 **I don't have a preview of the next chapter because school is a pain in the ass and I'm really lacking motive to write this...but I will finish it. Somehow, and someday.**

 **Till two weeks Sunday.**

 **See ya.**

 **Hunter**


	15. Forgive But Not Forget

**Wello there people!**

 **I can safely say that the first week of October is always the first, school-wise. First reports are due, a week of holiday is approaching and they need grades for the report, so the teachers are all so kind and cramp your week with summative assignments.**

 **Joy.**

 **I didn't do anything of leisure except drawing and sketching for a whole week and then I had two football matches (soccer) the past few days, and yeah, I'm dead tired and I can't wait for my head to hit the pillow again.**

 **ANd there's a math test tomorrow, which sucks, but whatever.**

 **SO I apologize for the short length of this chapter. I have awful time management and wound up writing it all yesterday...**

 **But I do hope you enjoy.**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _There was no nothing that was completely immortal. Nothing could leave forever, there was always something that prevented pure power over immortal life, or power. Always a loophole that usually caused for said beings to become monsters. The gods weren't as eternal as they claimed to be. Would their seats of power be destroyed, would they then be beheaded…it didn't take anything else for they to fade after that. With nothing to hold them anchored to life anymore…_

 _The weapons of the giants were meant to be used against Tartarus, as they could be used against Gaea for the same purpose of destruction. Twelve weapons crafted from their bodies, which could pierce their souls. It was their power, used against them…_

 _._

 **X-X-Sed Non Oblivisci Propitius Eris-X-X**

( _Forgive But Not Forget_ )

-.-.-

10th January

-.-.-

Things were going bad, for two out of three of the parties in the not yet unified Olympian alliance. The only group of that alliance that was getting _somewhere_ were the demigods, they'd figured out —or they thought they had figured out— how to defeat another primordial, all that was left was to attain the twelve weapons and fight, luckily on their own terms and when they were ready.

The second party, were the Avengers. They were and utter and complete mess. Torn between the accords and this impeding upcoming war which they wanted not be part of. They were mortal heroes, not supernatural-mythological ones. Although some didn't mind, others just could _understand_ why they had to help the demigods.

Selfish.

Steve had as well as flipped the bird at the accords and left, taking his best of friends, Sam with him. He hadn't forced him, the younger man had followed Captain America on his own, and knew what the consequences could be if they broke the law too much.

On the other hand, Tony had been the first to sign them, followed by Rhodes and then Vision, Natasha too. Steve was impossibly disappointed when he heard about that. She'd signed herself off, signing that she would have to stay put even though she did not wish it so. He didn't know if she was crazy or what.

Bruce had…disappeared and there was even less of a word from Thor. The two _big guys_ were out of it and no one, not even Nickolas Fury knew were. All Steve could hope was that they'd come back, and help them out of this shitty mess they were in.

Then there was Barton, when a crisis had arose from his country-side home, his wife and kids, he had had to run back home to them, missing the whole accord episode that Steve hated. Although if news of it didn't catch him through tv, he was sure it would soon through other means.

There was then the third party, who was really part of both the first and the second. One month he had spent under water, at the mercy of his father, who had upheld his claiming. The fear that if let out he'd cause havoc and destroy the palace in order to get to Poseidon and kill him was too high for the god to risk it. He wasn't thinking only about Percy in this, he was thinking about all the residents of Atlantis that would get caught in the crossfire.

That didn't mean he didn't try to fix things with him. He came down to his cell, every day after his dinner to see how his son was doing, talk to him, smooth out the hatred and anger burning in him.

-.-

For the first three days he'd lain like his father had last left him, and when Poseidon had come down to see him, his gut hd wrenched at seeing his son in such a state of despair.

He hadn't realized it when it had happened, but so much had changed _in_ him when the god had claimed him, fulfilling two lines of the prophecy. So much had changed yet in the heat of the moment he hadn't realized.

He hadn't realized that well inside of him, where for the past three years he could find only droplets of what he had, filling up. He hadn't realized, and when he looked carefully, he could see that it wasn't any less than what it had been before—before everything.

He didn't want it.

Any of it.

He'd give it right back to Poseidon if he could. He'd asked before. He'd been denied, told that he'd need as much as he could for what was coming.

Yet he still didn't want it.

Not a single wisp of it.

Because it had been those exact same powers that had enabled him to take the blunt of what Tartarus did. He could always heal afterwards, she…she couldn't have, not like he did. So he always told her it was okay, that he'd take it and heal, and she'd remain unharmed, for the most part.

And it hurt.

It hurt him physically and mentally.

This powers…they were _linked_ to what had happened down there. So, as much as he had been upset about them being _taken_ from him, by everything that allowed him to safe lives to be taken from him, he'd been grateful for that reminder to go away.

Grateful he didn't need to look at water or use it as much as he had, because it only brought back bad memories, worsened, by what his father had done.

After a week, he had come to realize his father had spoke true. When he looked at the facts, run them over in his head in his hour of solitude, he knew his father was right. And when his father had made him _see_ that it was true, the opportunities…he'd started talking back to him, although threats still lingered.

Poseidon had known since the time Zeus had struck the deal that his son wouldn't be stopped being monitored and threatened and challenged until he was dead, so as awful as it was, he had agreed, and then orchestrated a way to keep him alive. A way to give him a new life, free of the horrors being a demigod gave him.

He'd hoped, beyond reason, that his son would understand his actions, that he'd see through them, yet he hadn't, and he really shouldn't have expected any less from him. He shouldn't have expected for anger to not rule him over like it had, and Percy, he felt foolish.

Everything that had made him Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon had been taken away. It had been taken away and that person, that son of Poseidon had died soon after the younger. Instead he had been given everything to become the person he had always wanted to be. Someone ordinary.

And as much as it had worked out for him for three years working for S.H.I.E.L.D., everything had crashed down again…

As much as he thought his luck had been bad before, now it was worse. Understanding what he was given when it was taken away. When his freedom as a person was taken away and everything that made him the son of Poseidon was given back.

He had the rottenest of lucks, there was nothing except the fates that could convince him otherwise.

The relationship with his father was then…developing, yet he couldn't make himself look at him like they shared blood, like he meant something, because as much as what he had done had been a gift, the pain of seeing him turn his back on him…he wasn't sure he would ever forget it.

That ache he had felt on that day when not only Poseidon, but Annabeth, too, had turned their backs on him, had left him at the mercy of the king of the gods…it never left him.

It almost killed him in the first months after Zeus had 'killed him', when he'd killed the son of Poseidon. It subsided during the years that followed, but it never left him. Not ever. And it was that same ache, that kept him tethered to fear to sharing what he had been through with anybody else. It was the fear that the pain would come back when they saw him for who he was and turned their backs.

Loyalty had always been and still was, his fatal flaw. He would have given the whole world to save those he cared about, to make sure they were okay. In Tartarus, he'd given up all of himself for the girl he loved, and the way she repaid him for it was to _turn her back and run away_ when he most needed someone to just _stand up for him_.

He would never, ever, forget that either.

He'd lost his mother, his step father, never met his sister, he had had all but two people who knew the worst about him, who he thought he could always count on and when he'd been forced to kneel at the feet of the god's feet, they had turned their backs on him and left him alone.

Alone in an ocean, with no boat. Left him to swim all the way back to the shore. On his own.

When he had need them most, they had left. Left him to die.

It had hurt more than swimming in the River Styx.

That one flaw had almost killed him. It could have, in hell because he had been ready to give anything for her well being, as it could have, when the two people he cared about _betrayed him_. The second one hurt much more than any blade could.

In time he would forgive, but never forget.

-.-

His irons had been removed after two weeks, and the new wound they had formed had clogged and the water around him had healed them, leaving behind another thin white scar where many more already lay. Yet another had been wrapped around his ankle, chaining him to the same place in the middle of the cell.

Precautions were precautions.

He spent most of his hours sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, staring in front of himself as his left hand tinkered with the metal of his right. His eyebrows were scrunched and he was frowning, a usual feature on his face during the ours of the day.

He wasn't ready for it, when the heavy footsteps resonated in the halls that led to his cell, and divine auras were felt. Unwelcome divine auras. The scent of electricity and ozone. Fear —he wasn't above calling it anything else for it was fear, gripped his heart and it started beating faster.

He hadn't lived this long, survived as much as he had, just to die at his hands in the sea god's shell.

He schooled that fear, he closed his eyes and wrapped an ice cold essence around is brain, around his heart, keeping the fear that threatened at bay, and away from controlling his actions.

His eyes were still closed when the god of the skies stepped in the hole he called a cell. When the air around him seemed to have been sucked out away by his sheer presence, like it usually did when Poseidon was here. But then, the sea god himself came through, looking displeased and on edge.

Percy's eyes opened, yet he didn't look at them, either of them, he kept his stare at the wall in front of him, which was not the one behind the two powerful gods. His features were unflinching as he stared, and spoke.

"I thought you were done with humiliating me."

Words that were meant to cut, and displeasure a certain king for being utterly ignored. For being denied the first words. Percy enjoyed it very much, it was the only knowledge that kept him from ripping the sky god apart with the very powers he'd be given back.

"Your father did not know of my visit," Zeus said, sounding lethal although he spoke normally. "No one knew."

Percy didn't look at him. That sign of unyielding angering the king of the gods further, and further as his eyes instead rested on Poseidon and he said, "What do you think is going to stop him from killing me?"

"I. Am. Not. Here. To. Kill. You," Zeus said. "Although you are very close, to again be subject to one of my lightning bolts."

The demigod felt reckless, and he felt like he indeed wanted to see how far he could go before he could anger the god so much as to make a move that would hurt them just as much as it would hurt him. Electricity and water…

He looked at Zeus, then back to his father, as if in dismissal, like Zeus was not worth looking at. "I asked you a question."

"Perseus—"

"This is _bloody_ wonderful, you know? It's Perseus now, isn't it. What changed now from yesterday night?" He stood on his feet, managing not to hiss as the metal grazed at the wound he had opened as he had tried to slip the shackle off. The wound was still bleeding although he had no limp when he walked the few steps to the middle of the cell. "It's perhaps that your brother, our wonderful majesty—" He took a very mocking bow to him, bending at the waist, his right hand extended gracefully while his other was at his stomach. "Decided to take a trip down in Atlantis to visit this sorry excuse for a dungeon. Going so far as to stand from his ass from that silly ugly throne he cares so much about."

"Percy!" Poseidon's voice was strict and the demigod snapped his head at him.

"What?" he hissed, clearly angered.

"Show some respect—"

Not the right words. "Respect?" he asked. He didn't wait for an answer. "To who? You, who are keeping me under the sea, when you know I hate it, for some goddam reason. Or to him, who actually tried to kill me, and has been wanting to since he knew I existed."

"I could kill you, Perseus," Zeus said, and Percy couldn't help himself but to turn around and look at the king of the gods in the eyes as he spoke, noting his father tense. "I know, exactly the way I could, and if you give me a reason to, I will not hesitate. So, it would be in your best interest if you cut the smart mouth, and start amending by kneeling, and showing some respect."

Percy was still for a moment. Then he took a step forwards, deadly as a lion, and stared at Zeus in the eyes. "I will never, _ever_ , get on my knees for someone else. And if I will it won't be by choice and it will be to those that hold my loyalty. You. You're the last person I would ever kneel to. And I don't care that you're a god, or that you're the king of the gods. Kill me now and you lose your chance at this war."

He couldn't help but feel good about himself when Zeus didn't. He was utterly still, and he took comfort in that, as well as the deep breath his father released after ten seconds.

"Very well, Perseus," Zeus said. "Will you not show me otherwise, I will kill you. This time slowly, and in person, make sure you _are_ indeed dead."

He clenched his jaw, muscles feathering. "I'm glad to know some things never change."

Zeus turned, _dismissing_ Percy, not that he could go anywhere, and looked at his brother. "You'll do well brother, to teach that pest some manners, and respect. Or not even you will be able to stop me next time."

Then he was gone.

Poof.

Like a fairy.

But less nice, and glittery, and happy.

Percy knew his father was looking at him, his jaw was still clenched, and his teeth were hard pressing on each other to the point it was uncomfortable. Yet he wouldn't unclench it. He feared if he did the tears pooling behind his eyes would fall, and he didn't want that to happen in front of Poseidon.

"Percy—"

"Don't," he said with a shaky breath. "Leave."

"I didn't know," he said softly, taking steps towards the bars. "I had no idea he was here. I didn't _want_ to let him come here, Perseus, I swear. You have to believe."

"I don't care," Percy said. "Because you let him, and that— that was horrible. Looking at the being that had so much power over you, that had me hunted across a whole country…"

Poseidon was frowning. "You didn't look to be in discomfort—"

"That's because I know how to keep that within me!" he said. "How to keep weaknesses from being seen." His voice had gone incredibly soft.

Poseidon was silent for some time. Blinking, thinking. Then he was looking down at perches bare feet, cleaner than they should be thanks to the water. But it wasn't the dirt on them that he focused on, rather, the red gash around his ankle beneath the shackle. Clear sign of struggle, and blood was leaking out, staining the ground underneath him.

"You tried to escape." It wasn't a question, he knew the signs when he saw them, and he realized, with guilt, that perhaps his son had been cooped up in a cell for enough time already before this. And that perhaps, it was time.

As Percy went to sit back down where he had been sitting, Poseidon entered the cell, leaving the door wide open. If everything went well, that wouldn't be a problem.

"Why don't you let the water heal y—"

Poseidon saw all too quickly why. It was a silent request. Percy's anger towards him was too much for him to go beneath himself and ask to be let out. Instead, he was asking by use of other means. Such as hurting himself, making an escape attempt clear, and not healing in the hopes he's understand what was going on.

He slowly shook his head as he crouched next to his son. "Percy?"

"What?"

"If you wanted to be let out that badly all you needed to do was ask," he said clearly and carefully. "You need not result as to harming yourself in the hopes I notice and catch on."

"It worked." Something in the sea god broke at hearing such a tone.

Over the long millennia he had lived through, he had heard it many times before, but it had almost never been with one of his children. Ever. And he had never had, one child that had gone through as much as Percy had, and then hear all of it behind two words.

"I can take this off, Percy," he said carefully. "But you need to swear you will not break my palace, or kill anyone, or cause havoc. If you do, I'll be forced to bring you back here."

"Can't you just let me go?" he asked, looking at his father, at those sea green eyes he had seen looking back at him for so long, but were now non-existent. "Haven't I spent enough time as a prisoner, bound and…helpless to do anything. I spent fifteen years, helpless to help the person I loved most, and it broke me. And now…my friends are up there, fighting, and I'm here, rotting away."

Poseidon put his hand around Percy's ankle, the demigod flinching immediately, but he let his hand stay there, and fought against his shield to not heal himself and started manning the wound around his ankle. Sending much needed warmth into his son.

"You're not needed up top, Percy," he said. "When you are, be sure that you'll have your time to go and be ready."

"But I want to leave," Percy said, staring Poseidon dead in the eyes. "I want to see the light again. I haven't…seen it in so long."

"Can you hold out one more week?"

"Why?" He had the suspicion that had Percy said no immediately, Poseidon would have let him go as he was. Would have freed him, and escorted him out, somewhere safe and then never look back. But there was anticipation in his voice, and he was curious as to why there was, so he gave him a chance.

Poseidon's scanned him over, his eyes lingering an extra moment on his metallic arm. "I'm working on something. For you. If you wait, one week, her at the palace. You're own room, proper meals, lessons—anything you want. One week, be a prince, I'll tell you and give it if you wish it."

"Give me what?" it was the only thing he cared about. Not the, being a prince, although the _proper meals in a proper room_ was compelling, along with his own room. Like, sure, he'd been having a proper meal, and there was also a bed, in the corner of his cell, but he felt like a criminal, chained and behind bars.

"You'll see," Poseidon promised.

"So, stay here one more week as your prisoner and see what _this_ is about, or leave now, and never know?" In a nutshell.

" _Guest_ ," the god said. "Not prisoner. Not even prisoner, you'd be treated as a prince. Of Atlantis."

He chuckled darkly and softly. "I am no prince, and your definition of _guest_ sure is large."

Poseidon cracked a smile, and…waited, for his response.

Percy nodded. "Fine," he said ever so softly. "I'll stay for as long as you need me to. But you need to give me my freedom. Let _me go_."

"Not outside of the water," Poseidon said and Percy couldn't help the scowl that adorned his features next.

"Why not?"

"Just _one week_ , Percy. One week, less, five days—four even. Then you'll see and if you agree then it won't be done for nothing. If you leave then it won't work. And just, have… _faith_ in me that I am sure you want this. An opportunity you might never get again. Think about it through."

" _Fine_ ," Percy repeated. "I'll stay, I'll swear your oath. Just let me out of here."

.

 **Last chapter there was no Percy, this chapter was only him...**

 **So I've got this huge idea in my head about where this is going to go, but I am so laaaazy to actually start writing it all down, I am soo bad at time management. But I said it before and I'll say it again, i will finish this story.**

 **The child, the child can wait and go read the last chapter's initial A/N to get the whole reason behind it.**

 **Please review, and make me happy.**

 **And follow this story, it's on the 370s (ego boost)**

 **And chill out, and go read more and more.**

 **And if I can give an advice for a book to read, 'The Song of Achilles' seems great, I'm only on chapter 13 but I am hooked. Mythology and sheit, it's really good.**

 **And another book to read would be the whole of the Throne of Glass series, and then ACOTAR, but that's going far. All three suggestions have explicit scenes so don't go read them unless you can and feel that you won't disturbed or something. Mature content. Hahahaha. I missed the signs when I read them the first time.**

 **Anyways, there's no preview of the next chapter, because the next chapter doesnt exist yet. Hehe. My bad.**

 **so bai,**

 **Hunter**


	16. Torn Between Laws and Accords

**Hi...*awkward***

 **Just, I tried my best with this, and I gave it a twist so please read to the end, or...just towards the end. That would suffice, I think -well I'm planning- on something and if you read it perhaps you'd understand... spoiler ...**

 **It took me so long to make this chapter I'm not even kidding. I wrote the first bit in one go, but then the other bits...I had to figure out in my head how it was going to go and...it too me a while. I actually just finished writing it. Cuz today I got reminded 'Oh tomorrow's Halloween'. And I was just like, ' _It's already the 30th_?' WHAAAAt.**

 **So I told myself, that I would finish it today, or first thing tomorrow and I did. I realized the pile of assessments due is not as big as it was and so ... why not continue this story now that I can.**

 **AAaaaand, I'm proud bcs I didn't get sidetracked, although...I was watching Outlander...**

 **Oh and, can I just mention how happy I am, that this story has almost 400 followers. It's legit 6 people off. So I hope, really hope, that number will go up. I mean, it has been doing so good I'm actually kinda proud. I mean, I know it took seven months for this...but still. My highest of followers has been 443 for _Demigods at Hogwarts_ so you know my please at knowing this ain't far off from it, and...nowhere near done.**

 **All for me that's left to say is, please enjoy... (Half Rewritten 2 August 2018)**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _Steve had as well as flipped the bird at the accords and left, taking his best of friends, Sam with him. He hadn't forced him, the younger man had followed Captain America on his own, and knew what the consequences could be if they broke the law too much._

 _On the other hand, Tony had been the first to sign them, followed by Rhodes and then Vision, Natasha too. Steve was impossibly disappointed when he heard about that. She'd signed herself off, signing that she would have to stay put even though she did not wish it so. He didn't know if she was crazy or what._

 _._

 _"So, stay here one more week as your prisoner and see what this is about, or leave now, and never know?" In a nutshell._

 _"Guest," the god said. "Not prisoner. Not even prisoner, you'd be treated as a prince. Of Atlantis."_

 _He chuckled darkly and softly. "I am no prince, and your definition of guest sure is large."_

 _Poseidon cracked a smile, and…waited, for his response._

 _Percy nodded. "Fine," he said ever so softly. "I'll stay for as long as you need me to. But you need to give me my freedom. Let me go."_

 _"Not outside of the water," Poseidon said and Percy couldn't help the scowl that adorned his features next._

 _"Why not?"_

 _"Just_ one week _, Percy. One week, less, five days—four even. Then you'll see and if you agree then it won't be done for nothing. If you leave then it won't work. And just, have…faith in me that I am sure you want this. An opportunity you might never get again. Think about it through."_

 _"_ Fine _," Percy repeated. "I'll stay, I'll swear your oath. Just let me out of here."_

.

 **X-X-Itaque Inter Leges-X-X**

( _Torn Between Laws And Accords_ )

-.-.-

13th January

-.-.-

He had no idea what he was doing, or what was going to happen. Truth be told he had not a single clue of a plan in his head about what he'd do once he found Bucky. He hadn't planned anything. As soon as he'd seen the news, and Sharon had told him where he was, he knew he just had to _get there_ , everything that came after he'd deal with it, with Bucky by his side.

All his mind would give him where jumbled thoughts because the situation…god the situation was not ideal in the least. He'd been through tricky situations before, but this…this was different and not the good kind. This was a bad different and he had no idea how to fix it. The world thought he was a vigilante, that he was _dangerous_ and at that point there was nothing he could do to change their perspective.

He hated himself for it though, because if they thought of him as so, it must have meant that he had done something terribly wrong. For as long as he could remember all he had wanted to do was what was right, and there had been a time where he hadn't been so sure what that was anymore. Now, after all he had sacrificed and done for America, he got to see as those who had once stood behind him, turned on him and demand he retire or be put on a list, sign papers.

He couldn't.

It wasn't that the idea was wrong, by all means, if a hundred and seventeen countries approved of it…But he was not going to put his trust into an organization any more. After all, he had put his trust in SHIELD, and it came out that more than half of it was controlled by Hydra. That the director was his best friend's _handler_.

The thought still revolted him.

He had stood in the same office as the man, listening how one step and the world could change, how, we would need to break down the old one down before building the new one. Said just that, before ordering an attack on him in the elevator, and then, a man hunt for him. Followed by sending the _Winter Soldier_ after him, to kill him.

There was no way in hell he was signing those Accords. Not when agendas could be changed _like that_. Not when you didn't know if the person in charge was actually good, or simply wearing a goddam mask to shield their true objective.

He had nothing to lose…Once he found Bucky, and got him out of the building, he had nothing else to lose. Which seemed to be the only positive aspect of this whole mess Stark had so gloriously trapped them in. _Chaos_. He had Sam, and soon Bucky as well, and nothing more to lose.

 _Bucky_ , the name ran in his head like an echo as he went up the flight of stairs of the old apartment complex. _Bucky_. His best friend since forever. The only one that was still alive after so long, who had _shared life experience_. The only one who had always been there, keeping his back during the war and everywhere else. Until he hadn't been able to do the same. Until he thought of him dead, buried in the snowy Alps.

He had been searching for him, two years now, no lead to the right end. Then after the bomb in Vienna had gone off, and that Wakandan King had been killed…he knew that if he didn't find him, he was afraid of what would happen if someone else did. And whoever did find him might be inclined to shoot first and ask questions later. He wanted to _protect_ him, even though god knew that he didn't need protecting.

He didn't think it through, and as he thought about it, as he put one foot above the other…he came to the realization that perhaps he should have. What was he even going to say? He was sure that what had happened the last time they had seen each other had not been friendly. Bucky had fought him, shot him, and almost killed him. But —he was sure it had been him— he had later fished him out of the water and brought him to shore. Saving his life.

That meant he _knew_.

' _Hey man, I'm Steve. I used to be your best friend before Hydra brainwashed you seventy years ago,_ ' did not sound like a good start.

Soon enough he found himself in front of the apartment door. His apartment door. Bucky's. He swallowed down, the little strap of his suit helmet pressuring under his chin. He knocked on the door, stupidly so. What was he supposed to do? No one answered the door. He must be out. He tried turning the nob. Locked.

He worked on the lock and as quickly as he had been taught to do, the door swung open soon, and he stepped in, being quiet as he closed the door behind him. His shield heavy on his arm, Steve slowly and cautiously made his way into the apartment, being careful and tense. What if he was home and this was a trap? Perhaps not even for him. But what if there was someone?

It was a small apartment, two rooms perhaps, if the door on his left led to the bathroom. Otherwise…there was a mattress with a sleeping bag on the floor. A small couch, a metal table and then a kitchen behind that. The windows were taped down, almost like he didn't want anyone to be able to look in, or they were broken and he didn't have the funds to fix them.

It was neat though, and clean. Like the man that was living here was trying to build up.

He walked over to the fridge, there was a journal of some sorts beneath a couple of protein bars. He grabbed the journal, sliding the protein bars off, and then opened it towards the middle. He was met with a picture of himself, and then there were scribbles on the side. Words, almost like data points of who he was. Like Bucky had been studying him.

Then Sam's voice came through the radio in his ear, " _Heads up, Cap. German Special Forces, approaching from the South_."

"Understood," he replied, then the line went silent.

He stared down at the picture of hissed. Then he had that feeling, like there was someone else. There had been no footsteps, or any other reason for him to believe that there was someone else, but he had the feeling. This was someone who was used to walk light weighted, someone who had been trained to the best of his capabilities to do so.

His heart beat beat faster against his will, and he had milliseconds at most to contemplate what to say, what to look like before he closed the journal he had in his hands and turned around. And he saw him.

His best friend, occupier of many nightmares as well as dreams. He looks almost normal, except for the silver hand that peaks through the leather jacket he is wearing on top of a red jumper. A cap even covering his hair, looking like the cool gangster men that one can find in the streets. There he is, the Winter Soldier in all his glory, turned to nothing.

He set down he journal on the table. "You know me?" he didn't think about them, he just said them. They sounded like the right thing to say. He hoped it was right. Bucky didn't turn away, he didn't look threatening as opposed as he did, dressed up and all.

No, the man that used to be his best looked on the edge of jumping into action, smashing his head in and start running. "You're Steve." A flare of hope sparked within Steve, perhaps he remembered. Lord let it be so. "I read about you in a museum." He was lying, it was clear. He was nervous, he looked it.

The radio in his ear buzzed back to life as Sam's voice rang through, " _They've set the perimeter_."

He didn't respond to Sam. He looked at Bucky, and took a step towards him, rising a hand to show he meant no harm. "I know your nervous," he said, trying to understand what it was he was feeling. He himself was nervous, there were police men coming up to take him, he could only imagine what Bucky was. "And you've got plenty of reason to be. But you're lying."

Bucky's eyes flickered to Steve's slowly raised arm and then back at his own eyes. "I wasn't in Vienna. I don't do that anymore." Steve wanted to tell him he had never once thought it, and even if it had been true, he wasn't there to judge,

 _You would have never started was it not for me_ , Steve thought bitterly. Before he could respond to it, Sam said, " _They're entering the building_."

They were running out of time. He needed to make Bucky understand that they had to leave. Quickly. Else they could both end up dead. "Well, the people who think you do are coming here now. And they're not planning on taking you alive."

"That's smart," Bucky said and Steve was starting to feel helpless. _What had they done to him_. "Good strategy." No man should ever think that it was _good strategy_ that they didn't plan on taking him alive, let alone his best friend.

" _They're on the roof. I'm compromised_."

They seriously had no time left to spare. "This doesn't have to end in a fight, Buck." He seriously hoped he would take him on the word and they could both leave, before one started. Which would be any second now. Any second.

Just as he thought that there was the sound of heavy armed footsteps from outside the thin walls of the apartment. The Germans special forces had arrive, and they seemed to be about ready to batter down the door.

Bucky looked up, at the ceiling, like he was hearing it too. He looked even more nervous, but he was steeling his nerves. "It always ends in a fight," he said with a silent sigh. He looked down at his gloved hand, ready to take off the glove.

" _Five seconds_."

It _would_ end in a fight. Steve was sure of it. He gripped his shield tighter, and moved his arm a little. If they weren't going to run then he'd at least get some answers, or try to. "You pulled me from the river." It wasn't a question. He knew he did. The glove came off, exposing the metal beneath. "Why?"

"I don't know," he said, looking at him, and he was lying again, it was clear in his eyes that he was. He was just scared to admit what he thought, what he wanted, and Steve blamed it all on what had been done to him.

" _Three seconds!_ " Sam said urgently through the com radio.

Steve got impatient. "Yes you do," he least, he hoped beyond anything he knew. After all it was all he was after. James Barnes, the guy who always had his back. No one else.

Before Bucky could answer though, Sam was yelling through the com, " _Breach! Breach! Breach!_ "

The window next to them shattered and they both took cover by dropping to the floor. A grenade lay on the floor, the cause of the shattering. James kicked it over to Steve, who was quick to cover it with his shield and smothering it with it.

There is a huge crash on wood and the door falls off its hinges. At the same moment, a soldier zip lined in through the shattered window and Bucky shielded himself from an onslaught of bullets by pulling up the mattress that had been on the floor. Quickly after, while still holding on the mattress, he kicked the kitchen table towards the door, blocking it from the coming soldiers. As he then slams another cop against the wall, Steve pulls the rug from under another, noticing the brutality of his brainwashed friend.

"Buck, stop!" he yelled over the noise of battle. "You're gonna kill someone."

Bucky's response was to slam Steve on the floor, by the hem of his suit and then he punched a hole in the floor next to his face. "I'm not going to kill anyone."

From where his hand had punched through the floor, James pulled out a backpack and threw it out of the window. That's when Steve realized that Bucky had already planned over the case of whether they'd come after him. When he realized his friends had had a way out since the beginning.

As he stood up, both he and Bucky get behind his shield to avoid the gunfire, until James shoves Steve against a policemen, knocking him over and then using his metallic arm to repel the bullets that were shot at him as he made his way towards said cop and slammed into the shelves lining the wall. He then picked up a brick from the floor and used it to slam it onto another policeman coming in.

As makes his way out of the apartment he knocks out two other policemen and then jumps on a cop who's zip wiring down to get a level down before he stopped on the stairs and started making his way down the stairs by punching his way through.

Steve quickly follows out and jumped down a level, as Bucky continued to punch the cops and as he tosses one over the railing, Steve was there to catch him stopping him from falling to a certain death and put him back on the on the stairs, at the same time glancing wearily at James.

"Come on, man."

Then slowly, yet efficiently, James continued to make his way down the stairs until he then was on a long landing and sprinted off towards an open window, facing the same direction that his bag had gone off into. He jumped and when Steve got there as well he saw he had already picked up his pack and was sprinting across the rooftop of the lower neighboring building. _Planned it well indeed_.

Then a man, muscular and clad in black slammed into Bucky from behind and knocked him down. For a moment, Steve thought of him to be Percy for only a moment, before he turned around and he saw the mask he was wearing. Not Percy's. Instead it was a full mask that resembled there face of a cat, with pointed ears. _The Black Panther_. As he extended his fingers, sharp _claws_ popped out. As Steve continued to fight off the German policemen, he saw that the Black Panther started to attack Bucky with kicks and slashes with the claws, but even as Bucky fought back he was then kicked into a wall. Then the Black Panther swiped his claws and spun gracefully at Bucky, James narrowly avoiding from being slashes. He held up a metal bar to protect himself from the muscular man.

Steve looked down from the balcony as Falcon swooped from the sky. "Sam, southwest rooftop."

" _Who the hell'd the other guy?_ " came Sam's sharp reply.

"About to find out," Steve said as he took steps backwards. Then, just like Bucky had, he sprinted through the corridor, and leaped off the balcony just as a chopper flew up.

Bucky and Black Panther continued to fight as Steve landed and a bullet shot towards them, bouncing off of the muscular unknown man's suit.

"Sam?" Steve said, searching for his friend.

" _Got him_ ," came the reply, just before Falcon shoved the chopper off course, then swooped down to street level.

Using the distraction, Bucky broke free of his attacker and swung off the rooftop to the streets below, Black Panther following, using his claws for traction. So then the chase continued. Steve then followed, rolling as he landed on the streets. Gunfire soon teared up the sidewalk, and when Steve looked from where it was coming from he saw the chopper back in balance.

Bucky, being the hunted and leading this chase, jumped down through an opening and landed in an underpass, then continued running through the traffic of the underground. As both Black Panther and Steve jumped down, following, the latter noticed a Special Forces Vehicles starting to pursue them.

They were screwed.

Yet he wouldn't give up on his friend. Not even if it meant getting arrested.

An idea popped into his head instead.

"Stand down! Stand down!" the driver of the vehicle said through a megaphone.

Steve internally grinned as the vehicle closed in behind him and he threw himself on top of it, and splintered the windshield with his shield. The driver stopped driving and Steve pulled him out, throwing him off the car and slipping into his place and quickly starting up the car in pursuit to help his friend.

As he got closer and closer to Bucky, Black Panther jumped on the back of the suv he was driving, having been able to keep up with Bucky thought all this time and possible needing a rest from it. As Steve acknowledges it he swayers from side to side, trying to shake him off, but cannot manage.

"Sam, I can't shake this guy," he said through the radio.

" _Right behind you_ ," Sam said as several more police cars join the chase.

Up ahead, as a motorbike sped towards Bucky, James grabbed it and swung it midair, throwing the driver off and then hopped on himself, driving off. Steve keeps on his tail, Black Panther still holding on at the back of the Suv he was driving.

As Steve gets the car closer to Bucky and Sam swoops down from the upper world, Black Panther swings off from the car and lands behind Bucky on the motorbike. James flung him over his head, the bike leaning down as he did so, and then kicking his assailant away, straightening the bike and riding on. But Black Panther did not seem beaten as he grabbed on to Sam's leg, the latter trying to kick him off. Then he threw himself away from Falcon and onto Bucky, throwing him off the bike.

Rubble approaching, Steve swerves the car towards it and leaped out of it, then rising to face a sleek and muscular Black Panther. Quickly, like it had all been planned, policemen arrive from every side and surround them, guns aimed.

War Machine, James Rhodes, leaped down from above and raises both arms, both glowing with energy begging to be let out, thrumming with the need.

"Stand down, now," he said through the rough metal of the iron suit.

Bucky stood up next to Steve, just as the latter put his shield on his back, hooking it down. Although he knew it'd be sequestered before long passed. Everything would be. They were caught. But not defeated.

"Congratulations, Cap. You're a criminal."

Steve wanted to punch him in the face just for the mockery tone he used. They were friends, or as close to it as it can get. They saved the world together and now they were all against one another. Great.

Bucky was forced down to his knees, and Steve raised his hands in the air, showing he meant no harm. As a cop moved his arms behind his back then Black Panther too raised his hands, retracted his claws and pulled off his mask, revealing his mask.

Steve is surprised to see the new king of Wakanda, T'Challa, peering out from it. But not as surprised as he thought he'd be. After all, it made sense for him to be there, chasing after the man he thought had been the reason for the bomb that killed his father.

"Your Highness," Rhodes said as Bucky was laid down on the floor, and then his arms bound behind him. Steve let them take his weapon and then also let them haul him away, into one of those would lose this fight, that didn't mean that they were defeated. No. It had only begun for him, and by the time it was over he'd have his best friend back. Alive.

-.-

"For the record," Natasha said. "This is what making things worse looks like."

They'd been driven to headquarters, of what, Steve wasn't fully sure himself. The federal agency that had _captured_ them. Bucky had been put into a pod, bound in mechanisms he couldn't even begin to fathom and then driven off to some place where they'd question him. Steve and Sam had been brought to the camera control room from where they'd broadcast the interrogation.

Both Natasha _and_ Tony were in there, and Steve really wanted to yell at the both of them, punch their pretty faces out and then remind them the mess they had helped create. Although he knew it wasn't their fault, although fault on Tony could be questioned, after all he had been the one to feel all sappy and thought it right that _now_ , while all the crap about the Greek gods had come up, was the right time to be put in check.

"He's alive," Steve said, taking a seat on one of the chairs surrounding the sleek table.

Tony on the other hand, was on the phone. "No," he was saying. "Romania was not Accords-sanctioned. And, Colonel Rhodes is supervising cleanup."

"Try not to break anything while we fix this," Natasha told them. At least she was still on their side. At least they had a friend on the inside. Just one would do the trick. Just one.

Stark was still on the phone. "Consequences? You bet there'll be consequences. Obviously you can quote me on that because I just said it. Anything else? Thank you, sir." He closed down the call and looked at Steve.

" _Consequences_?" Steve asked curiously, they were still _friends_ in a way, he hoped, enough so that they could still joke around.

Stark didn't seem in the mood. "Secretary Ross want you both persecuted," he told them. Straight to the point. "Had to give him something."

Steve understood the underlying meaning to his words. "I'm not getting those wings back, am I?"

"Technically, it's the government's property. Wings, too," Tony added, as he looked at Sam and gave him a tight smile.

"That's cold," Sam responded.

Natasha was quick to reply, trying to ease the tension. "Warmer than jail."

-.-

Sam and Natasha had gone, and the feed from the control room were all on, overlooking the situations around the compound. Tony set down a presentation box with two fountain pens. "Hey, wanna see something cool?" He opened the box and showed him the beautiful pens. "I pulled something from Dad's archives. Felt timely. FDR signed the Lend-Lease bill with these in nineteen forty-one. Provide support to the allies when they needed it most."

Steve admired them and said, "Some would say it brought our country closer to war."

"See?" Tony said, as if Steve had just proven his point. "If not for these, you wouldn't be here. I'm trying to…What do you call it? That's an olive branch. Is that what you call it?"

"Have you received any word from Percy?" Steve asked him, changing the subject from _that_ war. Their internal war. He needn't be reminded.

Tony clenched his jaw, and rolled his eyes if only by a little. "No," he said. "It's like he's disappeared off the face of the earth. The bastard won't bother to show a sign that he's alive."

"Have you been looking for him?" Steve asked.

"Yes," Tony admitted proudly. "Which I'm sure is more than you've been doing."

Steve shook his head slowly. "I don't get it," he said. "Tony, we're in the middle of a war with… _primordials_." The word was weird and bitter on his tongue. "And we're here, torn between accords and laws. And all for _what_? Our action still remain our own. Are we seriously going to let ink and paper rule over our decisions."

"What are you trying to say, Steve?" Tony said. "That I made a mistake? Well, I'm human. But say it. What do you want?"

"I want you on my side," Steve said calmly. "I know just as much as you do about the mess we're in. Percy…he's our friend, and throughout all these years, we've always helped out friends. I think we should call this whole, _civil war_ between us off. At least until this is over. Then we can go back at each other's throats. But we need to work together."

"Have _you_ heard from any of _them_?" Tony questioned. _Them_ being the demigods. "Because I haven't, and I am not bothering to go to their mythological camp to ask of what's going on and where they've been or what they've been doing for the past month. They want our help, they know where to find. But what are you asking of me _now_."

"I need your help," Steve relented. "I need you back on my side. Along with Vision, and Natasha." Rhodes could piss off. After the way he had been treated. "I'm not saying I want you to break your accords. But if you help us. If you help _me_ now…It'd be something. Then we can figure out a way for you to break out of the accords."

"Who says I want to break my sign," Tony asked him. "I'm still bent on them being the right choice. How many more people are going to die because of us? Uh? How many? Are we just going to keep on punching our way out of things. People die because of us, continuously, and we don't care. Not until now. I won't break the accords."

Finality.

Steve brought his hand to his brow and massaged it, his eyes set on the set of fountain pens. He picked up one of them in his other hand and examined it, his eyes trailing from it to the thick book of papers that were the Accords. "You know, I could strike a deal with you. With the Accords."

Tony crossed his arms and looked down pointedly. "I'm interested."

Steve didn't raise his head, although his eyes looked at Tony, lines creasing in his forehead. "If…If you help me out, you, Natasha, Vision. With all the messes that are going on. After…I sign the Accords. But first, things need to go back to what they were before. With Percy, but also with…everything else that's been going on."

Tony scrunched his eyebrows and gestured around with his hand a moment. "What else is going on? I think I'm missing out."

"Never mind that," Steve said. He hadn't meant to go into it but the mention of something other than the primordial mess was enough for him. So later on in time, he could remind him he had mentioned another problem. "Will you help me?" he asked, displaying his teeth in a grim smile.

Tony sighed. "Sometimes I really want to punch you in your perfect teeth." A pause, then, "What do you me need to do."

"I need you to turn off the camera footage that leads into where Bucky's being held," Steve said immediately. "And I need you to tell me where he is and how to get there. The rest…I can do."

Tony sighed, ridiculously. "You're asking me to help you bail out a criminal?"

"He's my friend, Tony."

He hadn't known how much those words meant until he had said them. James Barnes was his friend. His only real friend from where—when he came from. Sure the Avengers were family, but Buck…he was the only one left for Steve. The only one that had seen him grown into the man he was today. He couldn't just forget about that.

Tony sighed, deeply, through his nose, twice. "You're asking a lot."

"I promise you won't regret it."

The billionaire rolled his eyes. "Fine, what's your plan?"

.

 **Am I the only one that hated how Steve acted in that scene, with the pens and how he got pissed. I understand why he got pissed, but I just- think he was overreacting just a little tad. I mean, that was hardcore, driving your team apart for your friend. I understand he was his best friend and all but... selfish...just a little bit?**

 **Okay, hold up, don't go hating on me. I love Captain America and he is literally the reason why I got into Marvel so much. I literally binge watched his two movies when I got introduced to the fandom. They were so good I swear I got compelled to watch every movie he was in, then rewatch them. Then...came Iron Man. Ehehe.**

 **On another note.**

 **Two words:**

 **Thor: Ragnarok**

 **...**

 **Lemme just let that sink it...**

 **I watched it, yesterday, memory as fresh as ever. It. WAS. MAGNIFICENT.**

 **I won't spoil it, but, if you had doubts about going to watch it, gods above, I swear IT IS WORTH IT. Action packed, humor, plot line that actually follows part of the myth, and... great *hot* actors.**

 **I'm in a movie hangover. It was amazing. I can't wait until it comes out on Netflix because...Gods I need to rewatch it and -LOKI.**

 **Gahd, I'mma stop before I start spoiling.**

 **MMMhhhhh. *long sigh***

 **So yeah, hope you enjoyed, blah blah blah. Review and favorite this story if you've got nothing else to do.**

 **I'm not sure when you can expect the next chapter, but my aim is that it will not take as much as this one did to come up. I know how tedious it can get. But, I'm gonna be exhausted by the end of this week and I don't know about the next. I'll do my best, and if it takes longer than I wish it to, I'll write another AN letting you ppl know.**

 **Peace out, I guess. Remember to sleep, I can tell you first hand how _bad_ it feels when your eyelids are closing throughout the whole day...**

 **Bye**

 **Hunter**


	17. Ten to Go

**I just wrote down the chapter name for the name of the doc and I was like, '17?' 'Already?'**

 **It quickly turned to, '17, only?'.**

 **I would like to mention that this story is of almost 78,000 words, and to put that in 17 chapters...I know, there are some authors that would put them in even less, but for me...that's a feat! Thinking that, if you look at Mist is Down, the story has gotten 44 chapters and less words, on the 60,000 as in the actual story without the ANs.**

 **Which is...waow. Improvements, bcs I know how bothering it is when chapters are barely a thousand words long, so I work on making these at least 4,000. Each and everyone of them. Some go to the 5,000, 6,000 and one or two even hit 7,000, but not below 4,000. I'm happy about that, tell me if you want them longer.**

 **Dun, dun, dun...**

 **400 followers !**

 **Whoo whoo.**

 **Thank you, so much. XD.**

 **I really just waited for it before uploading this. XD, whoops sorry. It ended up being only a day more. But thank you.**

 **SO here goes nothing.**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _Tony scrunched his eyebrows and gestured around with his hand a moment. "What else is going on? I think I'm missing out."_

 _"Never mind that," Steve said. He hadn't meant to go into it but the mention of something other than the primordial mess was enough for him. So later on in time, he could remind him he had mentioned another problem. "Will you help me?" he asked, displaying his teeth in a grim smile._

 _Tony sighed. "Sometimes I really want to punch you in your perfect teeth." A pause, then, "What do you me need to do."_

 _"I need you to turn off the camera footage that leads into where Bucky's being held," Steve said immediately. "And I need you to tell me where he is and how to get there. The rest…I can do."_

 _Tony sighed, ridiculously. "You're asking me to help you bail out a criminal?"_

 _"He's my friend, Tony."_

.

 **X-X-Ut Decem-X-X**

( _Ten To Go_ )

Tony had helped them. More so than Steve had expected or dared to hope.

When the interrogation had started, between the doctor and Bucky, Steve had stood in the control room with Sharon and Sam, watching. His best friend had looked anything but comfortable in that pod they had encased him, but he was doing a great job at staying quiet about it. There was something else then, about James that Steve didn't like. The hollowness of him. It disturbed him. He had let them restrain him when they had been surrounded, and he had let them —without a fight— put him into the pod.

Then Sharon had told them where their equipment— costumes were and they set to work. First by searching down their equipment and then…then they went towards Bucky's interrogation room.

On their way there, the lights had all gone off, and Steve could only hope the cameras were off as well. When they reached the door Tony had told him through was his best friend, it had asked his ID and upon allowing a facial scan, the door had opened, for him to find a corridor, with another door, this one thicker and left ajar. A man, in his forties lying on the floor asking for help.

He should have known better. He had gone to him, slammed him into the wall and demanded who he was. In the meantime taking the room in. The broken and empty pod, its pieces dispersed on the ground, and a missing James Barnes.

When Sam had walked through, said vigilante had made his appearance by trying to smash the former's head into the wall. Lacking to do so as Sam had ducked in time to avoid the punch by the metal arm which in turn, dented the wall.

A fight had started between Steve and James, and the former was surprised by how much he had changed form the time he had talked to him those few hours prior in his apartment. How raw with anger he seemed to be. He was another person. The Winter Soldier, not his friend. Yet the body was still his, and he wouldn't damage it so.

While Steve had fought James, Sam had chased down the 'doctor' who had become apparent was no doctor at all. Civilians had been evacuated, and the amount of guards that tried to get to him had been equal to none, which had been a relief.

Steve's fight had let them to the helipad, a vain attempt for Bucky to escape by flying away in a chopper. Not the most inconspicuous way. Or the stealthiest and Steve…he had managed to stop him, putting that heightened muscle power to good use to stop a helicopter from flying away.

Now, hours later, they were being chased, but, three men were hard to find in a city as big as Berlin. They had managed to find an abandoned warehouse and put it to good use to restraining Bucky while he was still unconscious. Steve on the watch out for the task forces that were chasing after them and Sam on watch for James to wake.

He came to, to find himself trapped in between two huge clamps by his metallic arm.

"Hey, Cap!" Sam was quick to alert Steve of his waking friend.

Steve peers out the hole in the warehouse's doors as another chopper flies by, then retreats from the door, turning around and walking towards the area where James is being restrained by the industrial clamps. He and Sam both stare at Bucky, assessing the situation, waiting for him to speak first.

"Steve?" There's a questioning tone to it as it is a greeting. His eyebrows scrunched, expression confused.

"Which Bucky am I talking to?" Steve was quick to ask, like he had known exactly what James was going to say, as if he had already planned out the whole conversation in those hours he had waited by for him to wake up.

"Your mom's name was Sarah," Bucky said slowly, like he was slowly pulling out memories from a deep well. Word by word. Inch by inch. Then he grinned as if though the next memory was amusing, "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."

There was relief on Steve's face suddenly. A hint of a grin at his own memory of those times and, contentment that indeed, this was Bucky, not the Winter Soldier. "Can't read that in a museum."

Sam looked on incredulously, crossing his arms in front of him. "Just like that, we're supposed to be cool?" he asked annoyed, staring at Steve.

"What did I do?" James asked, looking at Steve, completely ignoring Sam's question. He looked shaken, as if the realization of what he had done and who he had been was getting to him.

Steve looked apologetic yet hard serious as he said, "Enough."

"Oh, God," Bucky seemed close to having a mental breakdown, coming to the acknowledgement of what his actions could bring. "I knew this would happen. Everything HYDRA put in me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddam words."

"Who was he?" Distressed by the thought of what his friend had been subject to.

"I don't know," he said, looking genuinely apologetic and distressed of his own.

"People are dead. The bombing, the set up. The doctor did all that just to get ten minutes with you," Steve said, listing off all that had happened in the span of less than one month, less time than Percy had been gone without word. "I'm going to need you to do better than, 'I don't know'."

Bucky stared at the ground for a moment, wreaking his brain to get to know more of what had happened, to remember those quick minutes that he had spent with the doctor. "He wanted to know about Siberia," he said at last. "Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where."

Steve frowned. "Why would he need to know that?"

"Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier."

-.-

He had no idea how his luck had failed him _this_ badly. Sure, he had never been the lucky guy, always the outcast, always the one scorned, but this, this was pushing it too far. He wasn't sure even Percy had ever had this bad of luck in his entire demigod life, but maybe that was stretching it. Just maybe.

He had gone out in California, he had been staying in Camp Jupiter, overseeing the weapon construction, and he had gone out to the city, San Francisco, to get some very much needed supplies. Thing was, he never got to the supply store, what was it, _Walmart_? _Target_? He didn't care anymore, because he was being chased, and of course, why was he surprised.

The moment he had stepped out of the tunnels he had known he had forgotten something. It was only when he had started hiding and _trying_ —big emphasis on 'trying'— to formulate a plan, that he realized it wasn't a _thing_ he had forgotten but rather, a some _one_.

After all, his years as a demigod should have taught him something, for one, that he should never ever go somewhere —like a city as big as San Francisco, which mind you was at the base of the Titan's base— alone or without another fellow demigod, because then he could start getting chased by monsters, and that was never good.

A couple of them would have been fine. He was in his early thirties, he had experience and was not yet old enough to start getting the pains that elderly age brought. He could have fended himself off just fine.

But a whole legion of them…

He wasn't sure how he hadn't heard or seen them coming.

Their numbers wasn't even the worst part, no, no, it wasn't. The worst part was the monster at the head of them all, a nasty, big and ugly Giant. And what was even worse, it was his father's bane, _Mimas_. The big ugly one that, in Athens, had almost cleaved Annabeth in half. Almost, all he had managed to do in the end was cut her leg open, which _had_ been enough to water the stones but, meh.

His first idea that had popped in his mind upon seeing all the monsters had been, ' _Set them all on fire, steal the weapon and run_ '. Of course, a dozen contradictories popped up in his mind on why he shouldn't do exactly that, like perhaps because the streets were full of people, civilians and innocents. Women and children. So no, he couldn't just set them all on fire. He first had to lure them somewhere where it would be safe to do so, and then unleash his flames.

When he had been sixteen, his powers had been sluggish, yet he still had managed to save the world with the other six demigods. Now, double the years later (and more) his flames were a force to be reckoned with and, well, they didn't tire him half as much as they once had, so setting a legion of monsters on fire…it was something he could do. It might not kill them, it didn't have to. Only distract them for enough time for him to fight Mimas one on one, steal the sledgehammer that he clutched in his gigantic hand and then run back towards Camp Jupiter.

Easy and simple.

Hahaha, who was he kidding.

He had to try though, at least that.

So he quickly stood from the crouched position he was at behind a trash can and sprinted towards the busy streets of San Francisco. He didn't look as he crossed the road and indeed, a car almost crashed into him, subconsciously forcing him to stop and look.

A taxi!

Perhaps his luck wasn't as bad as he thought it was.

He grinned at the driver and ran to the door that led to him, opened it, muttered an apology, thought ' _This is America_ ', and pulled the driver out of the car, slipping in instead of him and quickly shutting the door in his place. The engine was already on and thus, it was no trouble for him to carry on the road, now not being on his own feet against a legion of monsters and a Giant.

He raced down the road, sometimes slipping in the other lane to surpass the slower car in front of him. He was sure that the owners of this taxi company were going to get about a dozen fines from just him driving through for the day at the speed he was going but he wasn't going to care. A small part of his brain thought whether that driver would lose his job after they found the remains of the taxi.

He felt a little guilty.

Just a little.

When he saw the entrance to the highway he didn't hesitate to swerve and take it, checking the rearview mirror to see how the monsters were holding up. Indeed, they were on his tail. He grinned at them, although they could not see him and kept on driving.

Once he entered the highway he pressed down on the pedal until he couldn't anymore, enjoying himself a little due to the exhilaration the speed at which he was going brought him. To add to it, he even brought down the windows to feel the speedy air rushing by, the winds flapping his curly air and drowning out all other sounds.

He didn't see the traffic building up ahead. He only saw them when he was right in front of them and the only solution for him was to swerve left, where luckily, the other cars had already slowed down. He managed, by some grace of the gods, to not hit any of the slowing cars and make a clean and quick cut through onto the emergency road and there continued to speed up.

If he made it out of this alive, he already knew what he was telling his kid, and his friends. _Valdez goes Rapid_. A tale to tell at campfires to come, and make them all wish they had been at the back of the car to feel the _adrenaline_ pumping through their veins like he had. Feel the fear of inevitable crashing or the rushing wind. If he made it out of this alive, Calypso would kill him for being so irresponsible.

 _Only if he told her_.

He checked the rearview mirror another time, they were yards behind him, a few more seconds and they'd be on him. He quickly glanced to the right, checking what was beyond the railing of the highway. Trees, coverage, a forest. Just what he was looking for.

 _Calypso was going to kill him_.

He steered the wheel sharply to the right and prayed to the gods, ' _If I'm as valuable as you claim then you'll cushion the impact_ '.

Surprise took him for a moment when the car dented only so much at the front when it broke through the fence. Then there was the downhill slope on which instead of breaking, he accelerated. Then he was beyond the tree line.

Checking the rearview mirror once more had been a mistake. Sure, he got to know that some monsters hadn't slowed down and therefore where further down the highway while other were picking their way down towards him, but it also served for him to crash against a tree.

Poor car.

He had been sent forward and the airbags had erupted. He unbuckled his seatbelt (yes, he had been wearing it) and then quickly got out of the steaming car. The fire of the explosion wouldn't kill him, but the impact of it would for sure. He wasn't going to linger to test the theory.

He coughed out smoke as he got to his feet, his hands already moving towards his Tool Belt, coming out with a hammer, a smaller version of the one he was about to steal.

Then he made his way deeper into the forest, his hands further working, taking out materials and screws as he assembled trap after trap and set it down on the floor. Plates, snares, mines, you name it. He had them all in that handy Tool Belt around his waist.

When enough was enough, and he was deep enough into the forest to know that no mortal was going to see him or anything, he climbs a tree. Getting to a tall branch that would hopefully keep him out of the Giant's paws for long enough. He was panting, and he wasn't surprised to find himself so. He was not used to all this physical activity anymore, perhaps—perhaps he was going to ask some pointers from Jason, the son of Jupiter still had all those ripped muscles he had when he had been a teen. Not that he looked any different, it was just…

There were cries further down as the traps he had set on his way caught monsters and hopefully —fingers crossed— killed a couple of them on their way here. Hopefully even managed to hit off Mimas and injure him enough so that his own job would be easy once the Giant appeared.

"Stop running, immortal!" Mimas was saying. "Be a man and show your face. Or face the harsher consequences when I find you!"

Leo let his head hit the trunk behind him, taking once last gulp of air before he saw the Giant step through the last of the trees and he could see him in full view.

The son of Hephaestus chuckled. "I'm not running, big guy," he said. "Simply allowing myself a head start when I do decide to flee."

Mimas's grip on the sledgehammer tightened, he twisted it in his palm. "Your breaths are numbered, Hephaestus's spawn. Yours and all of your siblings. Mark my words."

Leo grinned, his hands falling into the Tool Belt, fingers sliding around a certain object that would be of great help. "Heard it all before," he said. "Man, millennia of life, one would think you'd be more creative in your threats."

"You stole something," Mimas then said. "From my brother, Damasen. He wants it back."

Leo thought twice about telling him that his brother had willingly given his spear off to Frank, but vouched against it. If Damasen was trying to keep a profile in the army of Tartarus, then Leo would not be the one to pull off his mask. "Look, neither of us has to go," he started saying. "There is just this tiny unimportant object that you own that I need. If you hand it over I swear I'll spare all of you."

Mimas laughed out loud. "You think you can beat _me_ , demigod?" he said boastfully. "I am a Giant. You cannot kill me without the aid of a god. But we can kill you."

There wasn't a signal, word or physical, they just attacked. All of them at once. He brought out the object in his hands and dropped it on the incoming monsters. The moment it made contact with one of them the bomb exploded, taking out a dozen monsters as it did.

He felt the shockwave when he had already started climbing down. By that time, the remaining monsters, the Giant included had recovered from the blast and where advancing on him. He didn't hesitate to set himself aflame, not worrying about the fire proof clothes Calypso had furnished him with.

Spears were thrown at him as he climbed down, but with the fire he created solid fire-shields that deflected them. Sort of like what Percy had been able to do with the water, to freeze it into a solid form and use it as shield and weapon. It had taken him years to master this but he couldn't say all the hard work hadn't been worth it. It certainly had.

When he was close enough to the ground he leaped off the tree trunk and landed right on top of one of the monsters, bringing his hammer down on their head as he did to kill it. Feeling it dissolve into dust. He then turned, using the momentum to drive the heavy hammer in the gut of another monster, feeling pleased when that monster toppled over and against another, forcing that other back and tripping over a stone, and then hitting their head against another stone and dying.

Whoops.

He then touched a silken rope he had set down and watching with pleasure as it lit onto fire and then had a chain reaction effect, lighting the whole ground into flames. The grass, the ground, the trees. He heard the monsters scream, the sound rung loud in his head, but Mimas was laughing, again.

He watched the monsters burn as he moved towards the Giant, and the Giant move towards him. It was quick really, the time it took for Leo to beat the Giant down. To have him wounded and weak enough that forcing the sledgehammer out of his hands wasn't a huge feat. He grinned sadistically when he gripped it with both hands and smashed the heavy part against the Giant's face.

Satisfaction filling him when the Giant didn't get up.

Two weapons, ten to go. They could do this.

-.-

Bucky told them, he told them all he could about the other elite soldier HYDRA had been creating. All of it. From the blue liquid filled bags he had stoled from Stark's car to the experimenting going wrong and the soldiers going rogue. Everything.

"Who are they?" Steve asked after hearing the story.

"The most elite squad," Bucky replied. He was now simply sitting down on the chair he had woken up on, his arm free of the industrial clamps. "More kills than anyone in HYDRA, and that was before the serum."

Sam's arms were still crossed, the disbelief at the audacity of everything still clear on his facial features. "They all turn out like you?"

"Worse." A simple word, that had both Sam and Steve's minds doing somersaults at the thought of what it meant.

"The doctor, could he control them?" Steve then asked, after a moment of silence, a pause.

James waited a beat before saying, "Enough."

"Said he wanted to see an empire fall," Steve said. He had bad suspicions about what it was he meant by those words. Suddenly words from a ' _poem_ ' recited to him coming back to mind, ' _Hydra Will Leave Behind It's Corps_ '. He didn't like it.

Bucky already talking. "With these guys he could do it. They speak thirty languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They can take a whole country down in one night. You'd never see them coming."

Sam stepped up to Steve, "This would have been a hell lot easier a week ago."

"If we call Tony—"

"He's done as much as he can," Sam said. Then he waited a moment, letting all of it sink it, what Bucky had said. "Are you thinking about what I'm thinking?"

Steve's eyebrows rose. "That it's all connected? With the demigods, the— the _prophecy_?"

Sam's eyes twinkled with amusement, although his expression remained stoic. "I swear, God is toying with us."

"Steve." Both Avengers turned around to look at Bucky. "I have no idea what you're talking about but, the doctor…he mentioned someone greater than himself. Someone that was finally going to bring order to the world."

Sam's expression wasn't stoic anymore, he was grinning like a little kid in front of there Christmas tree. "God _is_ toying with us!" he exclaimed.

Steve on the other hand had stepped towards Bucky. "What exactly did he say, Buck?"

"I'm not sure the exact words," James said slowly. "But he mentioned that as much as he was doing this for himself, he was doing it for someone else. A bigger someone. Someone… _divine_."

Sam put his hands on his hips, exhaling loudly. "What are the odds, HYDRA is working hand in hand with a mythological primordial being."

"What?" James asked, confused.

"Tartarus," Steve said, facing him. "Greek mythology, we can look into it together. Just heads up, war is coming."

-.-

Leo had managed to steal another car and drive safely to camp, both hands on the wheel, whistling as he kept on glancing at the sledgehammer on the seat next to his. He had actually managed to attain a weapon of a Giant all by himself. Oh yes, now he could boast, _I defeated a Giant all on my own_. Of course not actually _killed_ it but as good as.

He was strong, he thought, stronger than he imagined himself to be. When he had set out to the forest he hadn't fully —one hundred percent— trusted himself to actually managed to get the weapon all on his own. There had been a part of him praying for the aid of a god, or simply for a miracle to happen such as Jason dropping out of the sky. Of course it hadn't happened, but he would have liked to think it would.

Although of course, in the end he hadn't needed the help. Mimas had been K.O. and Leo was proud of himself to have managed so much. Gods above, Calypso would be proud— after she pummeled him, of course.

He exited the highway, deciding to enter back to camp through the hills rather than the tunnel. That entrance was harsh and the opposite of welcoming. On the other hand, the entrance through the hills was like Camp Half-Blood's, a huge arch —Roman style— and a path that led to the pomerean line.

The sledgehammer was positioned on his shoulder, and he walked proudly down the hills to the entrance of camp. He got the stares and the gaps, the whispers and the looks and he kept his head high, his signature grin spread wide on his face. One arm lazily slung over the long hilt of the hammer, as if the weapon he was holding was nothing big.

His posture told them it had been _easy_ which masked off the tiredness he felt in his bones, the aches in his limbs. The fight with Mimas had taken long, too long for Leo's likes, and the burning fire had taken more than some concentration by the end of it. As well as him having been so close to dropping down and being cut off by the Giant.

He didn't get stopped when he reached the praetors' office. Reyna and Frank had obviously resigned, them being immortal and all, giving the room for not one but three different demigods for both the male and female role. Reyna had become a consultant, finding joy in the job, while Frank had fully retired into a quiet life with Hazel.

He didn't knock and he didn't care. He threw the doors open, the grin still on. They stopped talking, the two praetors and Reyna, they had possibly been in the middle of something. He didn't care. He walked to their desk and dropped the hammer on the table. Literally dropped it, a loud thump resounding.

"Mimas's weapon, guys," he said.

He enjoyed every bit of it when their eyes widened and smiles graced their lips.

.

 **Boooooooooom**

 **I'm actually happy about how this one came out. Like, I'm surprised how it also came out quickly, and without trouble. I worked on it for two days, and that was enough for it.**

 **I hope you like how I am incorporating what happens in Civil War with the line of this story. How it _connects_ to the 'war' with Tartarus. The slow build up. The connections. I'm working hard on this. **

**.**

 **On another note. I have started -not exactly- another fanfiction entitled _In Another World_ , which is a crossover between the Hunger Games and, guess what, Percy Jackson. **

**This is the little summary of it:**

 _The demigods didn't manage to defeat the Giants in Athens. Instead, the Giants defeated the Olympians and captured one of their most valuable demigods. In a vain attempt to rescue him, they lose him and her through a black hole. They woke in another place, a country in line with the Earth Mother. Pres. Snow works for her and plans on making their life utter hell for her pleasure._

 **If you are interested then please go check it out.**

 **I like, have a whole 40,000 words of it already written, which gives you an idea that I've worked on it for long, so it will not get into the way of this one for a long time. And, know that this will be my first priority.**

 **.**

 **I do not have a preview of the next chapter so peace out.**

 **Hunter**


	18. Confusion Settling

**Ayoooooooo there everyone! Long time no seeeee. How's everyone?**

 **ME, i'm amazing. Everything today went *kisses finger the** _italian way*_ **perfect. No joke. I managed to buy all the Christmas present in like, one hour. I received good news which I've been waiting for, for two months -easy to say I made a scene. And, I finally bought myself these Nike Sweatpants...God they're heaven. Also, I finally managed to finish this chapter. You guys, have no idea how _hard_ it's been this past week. **

**This past _Month_. I've hated every single day of it. All of it, it has been hard. Imma rant a bit so, just, idk skip ahead... Like, not the best example, I got suspended for one day from school, for a very big mistake and misunderstanding. It was internal, so I had to go to school, and I had to work for the whole goddam day. It was awful, and I was so ready to break everything in that goddam room. I didnt. But I was close. What was worse, I had to take a freaking Spanish test during it. It was awful.**

 **Then I've been filled with reports to write for the sciences, tests to take for every other goddam subject. Projects to finish. And more tests to take. It was awful. I literally said screw it half way through last week and just winged it. I didnt care anymore.**

 **But, then on thursday I finished, and gods above was I happy. Me having finished gave me time to finish the goddam chapter. I just did.**

 **Boy I'm on a good level of happy.**

 **Sorry, though, for the long wait. I know it was over a month. but, I wanna do this right, and that takes more time.**

 **Also, I changed my name, from hunter0806 to ArawnHunter. Hunter because I like it, and I dont think that's ever going to leave. and Arawn...I'm not even sure anymore where I got that from. But I like it. So yes, ArawnHunter is MEEEEE. I love the name.**

 **Now, please, enjoy:**

 **.**

 _Sam stepped up to Steve, "This would have been a hell lot easier a week ago."_

 _"If we call Tony—"_

 _"He's done as much as he can," Sam said. Then he waited a moment, letting all of it sink it, what Bucky had said. "Are you thinking about what I'm thinking?"_

 _Steve's eyebrows rose. "That it's all connected? With the demigods, the— the prophecy?"_

 _Sam's eyes twinkled with amusement, although his expression remained stoic. "I swear, God is toying with us."_

 _"Steve." Both Avengers turned around to look at Bucky. "I have no idea what you're talking about but, the doctor…he mentioned someone greater than himself. Someone that was finally going to bring order to the world."_

 _Sam's expression wasn't stoic anymore, he was grinning like a little kid in front of there Christmas tree. "God is toying with us!" he exclaimed._

 _Steve on the other hand had stepped towards Bucky. "What exactly did he say, Buck?"_

 _"I'm not sure the exact words," James said slowly. "But he mentioned that as much as he was doing this for himself, he was doing it for someone else. A bigger someone. Someone…divine."_

 _Sam put his hands on his hips, exhaling loudly. "What are the odds, HYDRA is working hand in hand with a mythological primordial being."_

 _"What?" James asked, confused._

 _"Tartarus," Steve said, facing him. "Greek mythology, we can look into it together. Just heads up, war is coming."_

 _-.-_

 _He didn't get stopped when he reached the praetors' office. Reyna and Frank had obviously resigned, them being immortal and all, giving the room for not one but three different demigods for both the male and female role. Reyna had become a consultant, finding joy in the job, while Frank had fully retired into a quiet life with Hazel._

 _He didn't knock and he didn't care. He threw the doors open, the grin still on. They stopped talking, the two praetors and Reyna, they had possibly been in the middle of something. He didn't care. He walked to their desk and dropped the hammer on the table. Literally dropped it, a loud thump resounding._

 _"Mimas's weapon, guys," he said._

 _He enjoyed every bit of it when their eyes widened and smiles graced their lips._

 _._

 **X-X-Commotaque Est Sederent-X-X**

( _Confusion Settling_ )

-.-.-

14th January

-.-.-

When Tony asked Steve to meet up and discuss things, he had agreed. Sam and James, however, had not. They argued with him for minutes to no end as to how this could be a trap and that if he was gone then there was no point in them being there. They argued that if he was going to risk this then they would come along as back up. They argued about everything.

In the end Steve relented, but won nonetheless. He would go, and meet Tony in private. Sam and James would be around the perimeter, and through a com, they would alert Steve for any type of danger and whatnot. It would be safe, hoping Tony wouldn't pull one out of nowhere.

They met in the industrial warehouse Steve and his mates were originally in. Tony came alone, in a suit, a case in his hand, and those weird red ray bans on. He set the case down, and looked upon Steve. His eye was back from where James had tried shooting a bullet through his glasses, his brow was cut and his arm was in sling. _And_ he looked pissed.

"You screwed up, Steve," he said matter of factly. He pulled out his see-through phone, unlocked it and started to tap on it until he reached a file. Then he scrolled through it. "You've woken up the IPA, BKA, BGS, all of which have put you, and your two dogs on their top find list. All of Germany is looking for you. Do you know how screwed up that is."

Steve's expression was unrelenting. "That's why I agreed to meet. Any idea how we can get a jet to Siberia?"

"Siberia?" Tony looked baffled. He closed his phone and put it back in his pocket. "Why on earth would you need to go to Siberia?"

' _Don't tell him_ ,' Sam's voice came through the com.

Steve shook his head. "I can't tell you that, Tony," he told him. "But true me it's important."

Tony exhaled. "You're impossible," he said. "And have absolutely no idea what kind of mess you put yourself in. You're being haunted from about every law enforcement in the country. Who do you think I am, some magician of sorts?"

Indeed that is what believed him as. People with money could get anything done. Including this.

"We have to fight together, Tony," Steve told him at the end. "HYDRA is working with Tartarus, and of we don't put this brawl with the government aside, we will lose everything."

-.-

Tony was mad, and the fact that he was sitting down on a chair while Secretary Ross posted him wasn't easing his mood by one bit. Talking to Steve had ruined his already bad day, and this was literally booking his ticket to hell.

At the end of his _very_ long rant, Secretary Ross looked over at Tony, "I don't suppose you know where they are?"

"We will," he lied. "Recon's flying twenty-four-seven. They'll get a hit, we'll handle it."

Secretary Ross placed his hands on the table, Tony glanced at them and then back up. "You don't get it, Stark. It's not yours to handle. It's clear you can't be objective. I'm putting Special Ops on this."

Natasha was there, too, and by some miracle, she and Tony were on the same team. "What happens when the shooting starts? What, do you kill Steve Rogers?" she asked baffled.

"If we're provoked," Ross replied with no remorse. "Barnes would've been eliminated in Romania if it wasn't for Rogers. There are dead people who would be alive now. Feel free to check my math."

Tony was really close to rolling his eyes at the man. Really close to telling him where they were and even closer to strangle the man. "All due respect," he started respectfully. "You're not going to solve this with boys in bullets, Ross. You gotta let us bring them in." _And maybe talk civilly to them in the meantime, ask them how life is going…_

Ross wasn't sure, "How would that end any differently from the last time?"

"Because this time, I won't be wearing loafers and a silk shirt," he said. That _had_ been silly. "Seventy-two hours, guaranteed."

Ross started walking out. "Thirty-six hours," he said. "Barnes. Rogers. Wilson!" He was gone. So was Tony's patience.

He slammed his hand, which was in a fist, on the table, rattling the object that sat on it. "Damn it, Steve," he cursed.

Natasha came to him. "You alright?"

He had a bruised eye and a cut brow. "Always," he said, as he put one hand to his brow as he thought. "Thirty-six hours, geez." His hand swept away from his brow.

She stood straighter, crossing her arms in front of her. "We're seriously understaffed."

"Oh, yeah," he agreed quickly. "It'd be great if we had a Hulk right about now. Any shot?"

She knocked an eyebrow. "No. You really think he'd be on our side? What about Percy?"

"No idea, the kid just vanished, and right now we have slightly more important problems than finding the suicidal brat, but I have a plan," he said, not really looking at her, and not sounding at all happy about it. She looked at him questioningly. "I don't like it, so I'm betting you won't either."

"What is it," she said.

"New York, Long Island," and he told her what he thought was an awful idea and an awful plan.

She listened, and she didn't disagree with him. Sure she thought it was a crazy idea, and the chance it would work was so low she wouldn't be surprised if she found herself behind bars in two days, but she told him they should go for it. It was either this or…or they would all die.

-.-

He sat in his car. A phone in his hands. His plan, wasn't nice. It would no doubt involve some pride-swallowing, and dignity stomping. They would both get a hit if he went along and did this. Gods above, his whole self esteem would decrease tenfold if he did this. Easy to say, he didn't want to do this. He really didn't want to but there was that sense of…duty—respect, that had him going, and had him doing this.

After he had talked to Natasha, Tony had decided to pursue his plan as quickly as possible because if this plan didn't work, then he'd have to go on plan b, and that would take a little bit more time to get through. Without mentioning he'd still be in the mess he was in at the moment. So he decided to fly back to New York, and with the accesses and funds he possessed, it was an easy thing to do.

Ten hours after the chat with the Secretary and Natasha, there he was, in his Lamborghini, in the middle of nowhere on Long Island, with his phone in his hands. Scrolling through the contacts, and simply staring at Steve's name. Contemplating. Whether what he was doing was a good idea.

It certainly wasn't.

He called him, raising the phone to his ear.

He knew for a fact that Steve's phone was ringing, yet no one picked up. He let it ring, until the voicemail came into play. He thought nothing of it for the first time, he could have not heard it. He called again. No one answered again. He started thinking that maybe, Steve wouldn't pick up for fear of _something_. Tony certainly wouldn't if he was in his shoes. He tried a third time.

Nothing.

He locked his phone and slipped it in his pocket. Put his hand on the wheel and looked out the window, at the hill. This was the place. This was the _goddam place_. He started to feel sick, honestly sick at the idea of going into this camp he'd _only ever heard about_. Full of these kids who apparently were kids of the gods. This was against any type of science. Though, one might think after all the weird shit he'd been through this wouldn't come as much of a surprise, it did. He was getting a migraine only by looking at the hill.

 _Half-Blood Hill_ , as Percy had once called it. Because Half-Blood, another word for demigod. Screw it.

In one sweep loop he opened the door of the car and stepped out, closing it behind him. He put his shades on. Leaning on the car. Damn he was so damn close. He could _feel_ the weirdness of the place rolling off in waves towards him. He hated it. He couldn't let it stop him though. He _couldn't_.

He started walking in the general direction of the camp. Up the hill. Through the tall grass. Past the tall trees. He didn't know what to expect honestly, when he got at the top. Percy had told him that mortal eyes were veiled by this mist so that they couldn't catch what they were doing. It wasn't any different when he reached the top and all he saw were these huge fields of strawberries. And a house. A goddamn big house. Which was blue. Talk about a fashion sense.

He racked his brain for a moment, thinking about what Percy had said all those months before. The place was a camp, but to mortal eyes it looked like a strawberry field. So did that mean that he could just walk through it. Just walk in and everything would appear? Could it work that way? He looked from side to side, noticing this huge pine tree somewhere on his right.

That's when he noticed that it looked unfocused. Like something was there, but there was someone else that didn't want him to see it an therefore was shielding it away from his own silly mortal eyes. He understood then what he could attempt in order to get in.

He took a step forward but there was something that disabled him to fully go. Like a barrier—a force field. Invisible and probably magical. He raised his hands in front of him and as he pushed outwards he actually felt the air vibrate beneath his fingers. Something was definitely wrong.

Percy had told him, and the rest of the Avengers, that this camp did not keep out mortals, only directed them elsewhere, so how on earth was the barrier, now, not letting him in. It was supposed to keep out monsters— A quick stupid thought passed through him for the moment. Was he a monster? Then he realized that…they were in danger and defense mode, they probably upgraded the thing so to keep everyone not wanted out. But then again, according to the prophecy, he was supposed to be wanted in, not out.

"Hey, then," he said out loud feeling like a compete idiot. "I know we've never met. But, I'm Iron Man, and uh, part of the Avengers. I need your help. So…Please let me in."

At first nothing happened. He was so ready to fly back to Germany and go for plan B. Then he could see ripples in the air in front of him. Actual ripples as if a force field was right there, and it was opening up for him. He felt cocky for a moment, and if not for the situation that had led him there, he would have grinned.

Yet he stayed very serious, even when everything in the valley started changing. Changing until all he saw beneath him was, indeed, a camp. He could see cabins on the far side, assembled in a u-shape, then others, around them. An arena close there, an amphitheater. And lots of space. The big blue house was still there, and so were the strawberry fields. Beneath him, an arch way and kids. Lots of them.

He started walking down the hill, towards the archway that was no doubt the entrance to the camp. That's when a ball of black smoke was sent towards him. He jumped and turned. Close to a heart attack. There, around the huge pine tree, was a _dragon_ , an actual dragon. It took him a moment to remember that he was dealing with mythology. On the first branch of the tree, a fleece of some sort laid. A golden fleece.

Once he got over the shock of _dragons_ actually existing, he continued his track down the hill. Towards this messed up camp where children of gods spent their time. _God help him_.

The first kid to acknowledge him was a child, young and male, his eyes the color of the leaves on the strawberry plants in the fields. He was mesmerized, how cool were the eyes of these kids. The kid only looked at him, and then ran away, back in the fields. Tony realized he looked no doubt different from the rest, wearing his black suit with the tie. The orange-glass colored glasses.

He went to the big house, no doubt it was the main building where all the conferences and meetings happened. No one stopped him as walked up the porch, and even though that was, he kept his hand at the ready to spring up the iron glove he had devised. Obviously the kids did not know what the metallic band was, otherwise, he had no doubt they would have had their weapons out otherwise.

Again, no one stopped him when he turned the knob and opened the damn door and stepped inside. Inside it was all wood, and he heard shouting. It was muffled, so he followed it to the source. Maybe it could lead to the director of the camp, or someone with importance.

"…don't know how we can use them, and whether their all traps!" a female's voice was dead serious, not even that loud. He didn't recognize it, which he didn't find surprising at all.

"Damasen, was the one that told us to use them," another female's voice rung out. This one he recognized, and it was like a stone settling in his stomach at the memory of all the commotion she had brought in the tower those two days. Annabeth. "He saved Frank and Jason's life seconds before it. The prophecy says we need to use them. What more do you need to realize they're not traps, Reyna—"

That's when he decided to open the door, and interrupt them before it deteriorated further than it needed to. What he found. He thought it'd be worse. There was a man, in his late forties, sitting in a wheel chair, looking like he was way older than forty. Then there were more than two dozen teenagers sitting around the table. He recognized a few.

There was Annabeth, on her feet, one hand flat on the table and the other pointing a finger. It was pointed towards another girl, on the other side of the table, this one with black long hair assembled into a braid and dark eyes. She wore purple cloaks, and medals. Lots of them. She looked pissed, and Tony's guess was that she was _Reyna_ , the girl with which Annabeth had been arguing with. She, as opposed to Annabeth was sitting on the chair, like she was just chilling there. The only thing that gave it away was the piercing glare.

Then he recognize Jason, and Frank, one sitting close to Annabeth and the other closer to the other girl. He soon realized she was the same girl that had held Percy in a headlock all those weeks before, there in the park. The one Percy had then proceeded to knock out harshly. Yet he had apologized, so maybe she held a place in that heart of his, and maybe they were on the same side.

Then there was the pretty girl, she too having been present that day in the park. She sat next to Jason. Next to Frank there was another one of the teenagers that had been there that day, a dark skinned girl with cinnamon colored hair and golden eyes, along with the boy, with the elfish features.

All eyes were upon him, and he should have been somewhat uncomfortable, but he'd done this before, so it came easy when he said, "Hello then," he said. "I'm Tony Stark—"

"No way!" the elfish boy rang out. When all eyes went to him, the grin disappeared from his face. "Gods, sorry. Please, continue."

Tony smiled. There was something about him, that had him smiling for some reason. He continued. "The plan was to say that, 'I'm sure you know what's going on with the Avenger right now' but, I haven't seen one device so I'm second guessing—"

"We are well aware of you situation," the black haired girl —Reyna— said. "Why have you come alone?"

The words were sort of taken out of his mouth. He had to swallow them back down. "Well," he said. "I'm actually here to ask for help. I'm in quite the mess."

-.-

He walked down the corridors of the palace. He mildly remembered what he'd done for the previous days. All he knew was that he'd been scolded by his father, more than five times already for being rude, or breaking something, or lashing or being a jerk in all senses. Every time he got scolded it was like the words entered from one ear, and flew right out the other. He didn't acknowledge what his father said, because honestly, he didn't care anymore.

He'd sworn an oath, and that was the only thing keeping him in there, at the bottom of the ocean. If it were for him, he'd already be back up there, on the surface, living his life and _helping_ those that needed his help. Helping the demigods with preparations, perhaps trying to fix what could never be fixed with the demigods. Apologize to the Avengers.

He wanted to know what was going on out there, in the world, but his father deemed it unnecessary. He called it, 'a five days vacation' before you go back to hell. If only hell was as good as earth was. No, being down there, at the bottom of the ocean, prisoner to his father, _that_ was hell. Not living up there, that was heaven. This was just another prison after the dungeons. Only bigger and with a lot of privileges, but he was still there against his will, and he still hated it.

Yet, he's sworn an oath, he'd wait another day, see what his father wanted to show him and then demand to be given one of those pearls that took him anywhere, or simply swim back up and then to shore. He wouldn't care if it took him days, he'd do it. As long as he got out. That was all he wanted. All he cared about during those days.

It's not like the company of the palace made it better. No, the mermen were just as rude to him as he was to them. They scorned him for being human, because humans would scorn them for being mermen. They gave him glares every time their eyes fell upon him, as if they were saying, ' _Filthy human_ '.

Once perhaps, he might have been welcomed. He remembered the first time he had come here in Atlantis, everyone had been on the battle fronts, but those that remained behind were kind to him. They treated him well. Now those very same ones glared at him and looked upon him as if he were the child of the devil. He guessed that now he knew how Nico must have felt like at the beginning.

At this point, he didn't care anymore.

He wasn't sure there was anything, or anyone in this mythological world, to which he cared about. Not his father, not camp, not the gods for sure. There was Annabeth…but she…she was something different. He wasn't sure what he felt towards her. All the time he had in his father's dungeons had given him time to think about it, about her. What she had said about believing him, and being truly sorry.

He came to the realization that there must be something that was holding her back. He remembered the relationship they'd had with one another. It wasn't something so easily broken. He had never really thought about why she had done it, or how things were before it had happened. All he ever thought about was that in the end, she had done it, and it always made him so furious, but mostly upset.

Upset because he had been betrayed, not only by everyone he had once thought his friends, but by the person he had suffered so much for. For the woman he thought would give anything for him, as he would for her. But all the time he had spent in there, with his thoughts as the only form of entertainment, he had come to the realization, something _must_ have driven her to leave like that, to turn her back on him like that.

He knew, that if he saw her again — _when_ he saw her again, he would ask to talk to her, and hope she wouldn't deny him like he had so harshly denied her. He'd ask for what had happened, and then if she was willing to tell him, he'd listen to it, and possibly come to a forgiveness. Perhaps, dare he hope, this given forgiveness to her would be enough to let him out of this cage he had put himself in his mind or loneliness and anger. Maybe he could be himself again after that. He hoped so.

Although he was willing to forgive _her_ , the same could not be said about any of the others. Actually, none. All they'd wanted from him was to have him join them, nothing else. It was never an apology, like hers had been. Never. He actually dreaded the moment he would need to go back to that camp and look them all in the eye. The restraint he'd have to possess because he was sure he'd want to take all their heads off.

He wasn't so sure he was going to full out get revenge on the gods, even he knew his limits. But, say they were in tricky spots, or near death, he would most likely not go to their aid. He wasn't sure they deserved it. If they died, he thought it was better perhaps. And the others…the rest of the seven, Nico, Thalia, Calypso. After this was over he was never going to see them again. He was going to erase their memory from his mind and forget about them. Would he see them again, they'd be nothing more than strangers.

He ignored the glares the mermen still gave him. Even after more than half a week, they still weren't over the fact that he was there, and not in a cell. He didn't care. He couldn't bring himself to care. He continued walking, his head high towards the Throne Room, where he had been summoned. The mermen around him held no respect towards him, he didn't see why that should wound his pride.

After the long walk, from the training arena through the long corridors of the palace to the Throne Room, he finally reached his destination. He walked in, the mermen at the doors opening the doors for him to pass through. Possibly the only act that went as close to 'respect' as he'd ever get there in Atlantis.

His father was speaking to Dolphin. The lord of dolphins. Or king, he wasn't quite sure. He didn't care. That's what. The dolphin was the only one that treated him like a human being, that treated him like he treated the other mermen, yet Percy could not find himself to be mutual. He was being scorned by everyone, he knew he ought to be kind to those that didn't, but he knew that if he did, he'd actually _miss_ the place once he was gone. He did not want that to happen, praise the gods.

He approached them, without bothering to think that whatever they were talking he wasn't meant to hear. He didn't care. He walked up to them, and Dolphin said, "Ah, Percy, your father here was just talking about you." He had this smile on…Percy just stretched out his lips to resemble it. It looked _very_ fake.

"I wonder why," he said sarcastically. Then he turned to his father, feeling like the god would start crying if he ignored him for much longer. "You called for me…Father?"

Poseidon seemed somewhat happy that he'd been called _father_ , and Percy was regretting it already. "Yes," he said. "Please, come with me."

Dolphin swam away, and Poseidon led the way. Percy filled silently, and a little annoyed. He'd just walked half the length of the palace to get to the Throne Room and now they were walking back the way he had come from. Why?

Things were different now, regarding the inhabitants of the palace. They didn't glare at Percy, or talk amongst themselves, or point. No, scowls were now smiles and gleamy eyes. He hated them all the more for it. Let _Lord Poseidon_ think that his son is being welcomed like he should be while he's around, then the moment he turns his head go back to glaring at him.

They were fake. He hated fake people. Or in this case, mermen. At least they didn't talk to him, actually provoke him. His half-brother —the thought of them being related disturbed him— Triton straight up called him a bastard and a weakling, right in front of Poseidon and there was only so much the God of the seas could do. Percy shut him up the moment he had opened his mouth to defend him, telling him he didn't _need_ defending. He'd done well enough on his own for the past four years, he could do it now.

He followed the god through the halls, quietly walking behind the Lord of the sea's big muscular frame. He didn't say anything, and neither did Poseidon. He simply led the way, he didn't even check if Percy was still behind them or not. Maybe he didn't care. Like he didn't care.

At long last they reached a door, which was opened by mermen as Poseidon approached. Percy went through after him and the doors closed. Poseidon then reached for a lever and pulled on it, the water around them started to get sucked out of the room and soon enough, there was _air_ around them, and the ground was dry. Everything was dry and it felt as though he were in a normal room, there on the surface.

"What is this?" he questioned out loud.

Poseidon was already walking ahead, further in the room. He turned around to face him. "Come with me."

Confused, he followed the god of the seas. They reached this chair, his first thoughts were that his father would have a go at being a dentist, but then he noticed there were no teeth operators near it. There was _nothing_ near it. Poseidon motioned for him to sit down, and so, slowly and hesitantly he sat down.

He looked up upon his father. "What..?"

"You lost an arm a couple of years ago," Poseidon said. "I want to remedy that."

Percy's brows furrowed. "Make my arm grow back?" he asked him.

Poseidon seemed close to chuckling. "No," he said, Percy looked a bit disappointed. "But, if you let me, I can make it so it'll look like it."

"Like my old hand?" he tried to clarify.

"Not exactly like it," the god said. "But…some help from Hephaestus…some from Hecate…I think we can give you something could help you. Maybe make it easier."

He was silent for a long time. The prospect of having an arm that will look normal…He trusted Hephaestus that whatever he had manufactured would be amazing but…would he then feel in debt of his father, of the gods? Would he feel like he owed them for it. He didn't like the idea of it. On the other hand, as badass as a metallic arm looked, he _was_ sick of people staring, of having to hide it beneath a glove. Maybe this _could_ make it easier.

Poseidon seemed to sense his uneasiness. "If you don't like it, you can get this one back."

Again, he was silent for a long time. "Would it hurt?" he asked at last.

"No," Poseidon said without hesitation. "You wouldn't feel a thing. You can be put under and—"

"I get it."

The god smiled. "So you'll take it the gift?"

He didn't respond for a while, he only stared at the wall but then he nodded. "But I won't owe you for it," he stated. "It's a gift."

"You don't owe me anything, Percy," Poseidon said.

"Great," he said. "Then get on with it, I want to see the sun again."

.

 **That is a wrap up for this time.**

 **I would like to say, things will be busy, bcs holiday, the next few weeks and well, the next chapter will come when it comes. If you feel like the wait is too long, then Idk unfollow the story. Or hate on me. Either way, I will continue with it until I am done.**

 **Also, Merry Christmas, even though it is two days early, and a Happy New Year. Let's hope we all have a good one.**

 **So ye, enjoy your holidays. Also, for anyone interested in a crossover between PJO and the Hunger Games, then check out the one I'm updating. The first chapter will come out shortly after this one.**

 **Comment, follow, and favorite. ANd Merry Christmas again.**

 **Hunter**


	19. Solutions

**Hi, eheh, sorry for the _long_ wait. I find it weird, maybe funny as well, how, it went from a steady schedule of updates and ****uploads to... _this_ , whatever this is. **

**I can only say, I was busy, I almost broke my finger, and I procrastinate too much.**

 **But it's here now!**

 **SO don't hate.**

 **I read all your comments, and I'm trying to shape this as much as I can to appease those comments. I try. Every time, My damn best. XD**

 **Just please, enjoy.**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _All eyes were upon him, and he should have been somewhat uncomfortable, but he'd done this before, so it came easy when he said, "Hello then," he said. "I'm Tony Stark—"_

 _"No way!" the elfish boy rang out. When all eyes went to him, the grin disappeared from his face. "Gods, sorry. Please, continue."_

 _Tony smiled. There was something about him, that had him smiling for some reason. He continued. "The plan was to say that, 'I'm sure you know what's going on with the Avenger right now' but, I haven't seen one device so I'm second guessing—"_

 _"We are well aware of you situation," the black haired girl —Reyna— said. "Why have you come alone?"_

 _The words were sort of taken out of his mouth. He had to swallow them back down. "Well," he said. "I'm actually here to ask for help. I'm in quite the mess."_

 _._

 _The god smiled. "So you'll take it, the gift?"_

 _He didn't respond for a while, he only stared at the wall but then he nodded. "But I won't owe you for it," he stated. "It's a gift."_

 _"You don't owe me anything, Percy," Poseidon said._

 _"Great," he said. "Then get on with it, I want to see the sun again."_

 _._

 **X-X-Explicatus-X-X**

( _Solutions_ )

He didn't know what happened, or how it happened. But when he awoke again, things were different. He could feel it. Things had changed, in his body, but also in his mind. Somewhere, deep in there, there was something that hadn't been before. Something that had been ripped out and possibly replace by something new. He thought he knew what it was, now he needed to find that place.

His eyelids parted, letting the light from the torches through. Again, there was no one in the room, nothing else apart from him, his father and…they'd put it on display. His arm…that weird and robotic thing…they had it on display, on the near wall.

He averted his eyes. The came down to his now hands, and since for a long time…they looked the damn same. He thought the light was playing a trick on his eyes. He blinked. Nothing changed. It remained like it was. He was confused. Poseidon had told him it would look realistic. But there was a difference between _looking_ realistic and _being_ realistic.

His left hand touched it and found it to be…the weirdest thing. It _felt_ like real skin. Damn, he had _felt_ his hand touch the limb. How on earth could _that_ be possible. It couldn't. He didn't understand, and boy, he _cared_.

In his mind, this huge control panel popped up and he started playing with it. He curled his fingers into fists, clenching his hand. He could _feel_ the muscles in his forearm. He released the pressure and again, he could feel the release. He turned it over and over again. Placed it next to his left and compared them. _How_ _could such a thing be possible?_

He looked at his father, questioningly.

"I hope you like it," he said, like he was talking about a simple present.

He looked down at the hand. "This is…" He couldn't form words. "This is… _abnormal_."

"Will you keep it?" Poseidon asked him.

He wasn't so sure. It looked amazing. It felt amazing but…it was something from the gods, and whatever was happening wouldn't make his leniency with them last forever. He'd already said it, countless of times that he would help in whatever way he could, but at the end of the day, he was still on his own. Not fully on their side. Never again.

Poseidon noticed his hesitance. "Look," he started. "Can you find the controls for this?"

Percy nodded, slowly. "Yeah, why?"

"Change it," Poseidon said. Percy's confused expression was enough for him to elaborate. "It can change form. Try it."

"How?" he asked, mesmerized.

Poseidon didn't back down. "Just try changing it. Think it. Control it."

He looked down upon his arm and tried, like Poseidon was telling him to. Then it happened. Starting from the fingertips. The skin color, and look of the prosthetic changed. It was now black —metallic black. Shiny and sleek. It kept on shifting up to his elbow where it stopped, the skin part of it looking like it was clinging on to it. Like the metallic part was barely an extension his skin created. It looked kind of sick.

Again, he moved his hand around, looking at it, learning its details. He couldn't _understand_ how such a thing could be possible. Then he remembered, _But…some help from Hephaestus…some from Hecate_ … Magic and craftsmanship from the best. From two _gods_. He shouldn't be surprised, he realized.

"Try something with it," Poseidon pushed him. "There is much more than that, that you can do."

Percy was starting to get more confused by the second. "What do you mean, there's more?"

"Just try, like you tried when you changed it."

He didn't respond, although he did try again. And again. And again. Until…huge sharp claws sprung from the cybernetic knuckles. Sharp like blades, with a little angle on the half mark to have them curve over his fingers. He moved the fingers, watching as the sharp claw atop it moved with it, to maintain the same distance all throughout.

Starting to get the hang of it, he managed to turn the whole cybernetic limb back into looking like a normal and real one. Again, he could feel the mechanics working like muscles did in the arm, as he moved the hand. He could feel the skin stretching and going back. It felt…ever so weird.

He looked up at his father and said, "This is weird."

Poseidon took the comment well. " _Do_ you like it?" he asked him.

Percy did. Yet he could put find the right words to tell that to his father. He opted into something. "How do I know, you won't be controlling this behind a screen?" he said, quick to accuse. "How do I know that you don't have any control on this? I can't."

"Percy?"

"I can't trust this," he said clearly. "This peace of tech, created by you _gods_. I can't _trust_ it. I can't trust _you_."

He slowly started to realize he really couldn't. No amount of time could pass where the trust they had all broken could be fixed. No amount of time would ever be sufficient. Poseidon amongst them, had been the first to break him. To disown him and turn his back in him. He might have forgiven the god for his actions, slowly and carefully coming to an understanding, but it would take much, much, _much_ more for him to be able to trust his father again.

The cybernetic arm was amazing. It was something special, and Percy knew, with time he would come to unravel it's mysteries. He would no doubt grow attached to it. Perhaps even start to rely on it as a weapon. But all that would happen if he accepted it. If he agreed to _trust_ this man, who had broken said thing in a moment. If he agreed to trust this weapon.

Weapon.

The word brought a realization upon him.

As much as Poseidon claimed this was a gift, Percy was now seeing it as something else. Not for his own benefit, but for something else.

It was a weapon.

Held by _the strongest demigod of the century_.

That's what it was. A weapon. An arm that would kill thousands of its owner's enemies. Percy's enemies, at the moment, where Tartarus and his army. The Giants. This arm, it would help bring their downfall. His enemies, which were also Olympus'. Olympus which was ruled by self serving pissy gods.

He swallowed down his anger.

"Change it back," he said to his father. "I don't want it."

"Percy—"

He lost his patience. "I am _not_ your weapon!" he yelled at him. Unconsciously, the cybernetic limb turned metallic black. "I am not now, and I never will be. Never again. I fought for you before, and I will do so now, because _my_ world is in danger. Because _my_ life and countless others, are on the line. But I will fight with _my_ own weapons. I will not become some weapon you along with probably Zeus want me to be."

Poseidon's eyes filled with what one might say was sympathy, understanding. "It wasn't my intention," he said in a low voice. "But it is a gift, Percy. You use it however you like."

"No," Percy said. "I will not accept this. I cannot trust it. And I will not be a walking weapon for the Olympians."

"Try it," Poseidon said, almost close to pleading. "Just, try it out. Two weeks. You do whatever you want with it. Just, please try it out. Maybe you like it. At the end of the two weeks you can then tell me whether you want to change it. I will not push it."

Percy thought about it. For a while, too. He couldn't say no, that much he knew. This _weapon_ that was being given to him, as much as he detested the idea, he did acknowledge the pros of having it during a fight. The strength it would give him, the extra support, the extra weapon. It would aid him a lot he realized.

"I have one condition," he said to his father. "I use this as the weapon only when I want to."

Poseidon nodded his head. "Done."

-.-

Annabeth looked at Tony, sympathetically he would say. He didn't understand where _that_ would come from. The last time he had a chat with the girl he had kicked her out of his tower. He couldn't begin to understand where such a feeling would come from. And why. But it was there, in her eyes, sympathy and will to help him.

When he looked to the other girl, scarier, if he could say, than Annabeth, he found no such thing as sympathy. The opposite really. Annoyance was clear in her expression, because of whatever he had interrupted, and also a look that told him she would take no effort in removing him from the room.

He opted into looking at Annabeth, but someone else spoke before he could. Someone, he hadn't noticed. Which was weird, as he sat two seats away from Annabeth and the aura that come from him.

It was death.

It was like the shadows where bending around him, closing in on him. As if he were the peak point, the source of the shadows all over the room. His skin was pale, paler than he'd ever seen skin be. He looked as old as the other dozen teenagers in the room.

His eyes showed Tony that he was a long way off from being seventeen.

His eyes were black, like the blackest and deepest pits. Perhaps even those of hell. As Tony looked in them, he could see pain, and misery, and even more pain. He couldn't see any single ray of light or good within them.

Although his eyes told him that story, there were other factors that told him the opposite. His hair was cut short at the sides, and longer on the top, messily styled, although looking good. On his earlobe, a ring piercing ran through which gave Tony an idea of what type of man he was. His wore an aviator's jacket on top of an orange t-shirt, the same t-shirt everyone on that half of the table seemed to be wearing. _Camp Half-Blood_.

These were the Greeks.

He was a Greek.

He chuckled, an action that did not suit his appearance. "Why does _Tony Stark_ need our help?"

Tony did _not_ like how he spoke of him, speaking his name as if disgusted with the idea. He didn't understand why anyone would ever say his name with such disgust?…sarcastic voice?…His name was one to be spoken of, highly. Not like this.

"I'm sure you've heard of the Sokovian Accords?" he inquired, rhetorically of course. He knew they had. If they knew the mess he was in, then they knew of the Accords.

A loud annoyed sigh came from the Reyna, who still glared at Tony. When he looked towards her, ready to ask her if she had a problem. He saw her watching the death boy, then rolling her eyes like a child would. It did not suit her, like the chuckle had not suited the teen.

"Of course," Annabeth said. "They're in the prophecy. They're what drove you and the rest of the avengers apart, aren't they?"

Tony noticed the empty chair. He leisurely sat in it. Then grimaced. "You could call it that," he relented. "Its more Steve, trying to…whatever. I have a plan on how to fix the mess."

He noticed the man in the wheelchair, raising an eyebrow at him. "How do you propose we help?"

There were sharp glares sent at Tony, and the old man, at the statement. He wasn't sure everyone liked him. He couldn't understand why. He was a very likable man. "Mmh, well…Percy mentioned something about a _Mist_."

The demigods around him shuffled at the name. _Percy_. They looked amongst themselves, some even whispered with one another. He saw that pretty girl, sitting next to Jason, talk to him, although he was looking across the room, to the Frank guy. Annabeth looked dead on the inside in the matter of seconds, and the other girl, Reyna, glared harder. It was like a shudder going through them all, by just a name.

The he realized, Percy, wasn't just a name.

It was _the_ name of the one man they'd all treated as their brother, as their best friend. It was also the name of the man they had all turned their backs on. The man that had meant so much to them, that had sacrificed so much for them, and they'd simply looked away when he'd been in need of them most. When he was accused of murder, and they all didn't believe him. When he had no one left except them, and they chose to turn away.

Now, perhaps, they had understood that he wasn't at fault. Perhaps they felt guilty about it, too. Perhaps that was the reason that they all had something to say to another when he spoke his name, completely forgetting the point he had made.

He continued with the explanation, "So I was thinking, that maybe, you could…pull your magic, and perhaps, make the government, Secretary Ross, forget the Accords ever existed." By the end of it he realized the ridiculousness of his request.

" _No_." The answer came quickly. By Reyna no less. She seemed to be the most level headed in the room amongst the teenagers. The one that put everything before what she wanted. The one who saw the bigger picture perhaps. The most _mature_ one.

He looked at her, not surprised, but troubled. "Why not?" he asked, without really thinking about it. He just needed a solution which didn't involve him having to bring in Steve, and his two dogs. Anything that worked would do fine with him. Otherwise he'd need to fly half across the world again. He'd feel humiliated.

Reyna's features didn't waver, and that fact alone made Tony uncomfortable. "You're asking us to change the minds of everyone on the planet—"

"Except us," he interrupted. Immediately regretting it when she deepened her glare.

"—even if we wanted to," she continued, keeping her sharp eyes on him. "We have no means to do that. Such change could only be done by the gods. Not us."

He didn't feel discouraged, not yet. "Maybe you could ask them…?" It came out more as a question than a statement.

Her eyes pierced him. "My answer, as the Head of the Roman Senate, is no."

Her vote, he repeated in his mind. Only hers. There were two dozen kids in this room, who, he hoped, all had a vote to give on this. He looked upon Annabeth, but she was looking at the old man in the wheelchair. The old man in return, was looking at Annabeth, subtly nodding.

Then she looked at Tony. "In my opinion we can try," she told him. "I have solid connections with the gods. I work as their architect. My relationship with them all is good. I can bring this forward in the next meeting."

"When's that?" he asked, not fully sure she understood his situation.

"Next week," she said.

Tony shook his head immediately. "No, uh, I'd need this within twenty four hours. I'm on a deadline, you see. If I don't bring in the ' _Rogue Avengers_ ' before tomorrow my neck is on the line."

Annabeth didn't seem to be as sympathetic as before. "Then I'm not sure that's possible—"

"We can try," the boy said. The one that felt and looked like death. Him. He was being positive. Which again, Tony didn't think it suited him.

Looking next to the boy, another male demigod, he thought that _this one_ did suit to be happy and positive. He seemed to be the epitome of happiness and positive energy. With his blonde curls, looking like rays of sunshine. Those blue eyes, like the sky on a sunny day. Those freckles, no doubt cause of all the sun he must be getting.

This boy was the opposite of the other one. He was the sun and the other was the darkness. He realized that the two, would no doubt make an…extraordinary pair.

Annabeth looked at him. "Nico, what he's asking is impossible," she told him, what could be heard as disappointment, sadness, in her voice.

'Nico', shook his head. "I can arrange a meeting with my father by the time this meeting is over," he said, looking at Annabeth, then starting to look at everyone else. Hoping no doubt, that they'd back him up, and give him the convincing he lacked. "He's on the council. He can call an emergency meeting. The gods will see it's worth putting their effort in it. They need the Avengers if they want to keep their thrones. Plus, I'm sure Poseidon will side with him."

"Why?" the girl, the one next to Jason asked him. "What makes you so sure?"

Nico looked at her, softly, like he would to a family member. "Because of Percy. And when Poseidon sides with my father, that will be two out of the three original brothers. The rest of the council will be quick to agree."

Tony liked how it sounded. As he thought about it though, he came to the reason why this Nico, looked so much like death. He'd mentioned that he was the son of one of the three original brothers. Not Poseidon, for sure. Not Zeus, that was Jason. But maybe…he was the son of Hades. That cool god that ruled the Underworld. Bent shadows to his will and raised the dead. Yep that one.

"That sounds cool to me," Tony said. "I would very much appreciate it."

Tony stood, straightening out his jacket and suit as he did so. Running a hand through his messy hair before raising his red shades so that he could see the demigods more clearly. He moved towards the door, when he remembered about something that had been troubling him. He turned around and looked at Jason mostly, but the question was directed to everyone.

"Do you guys have an idea of where Percy is, at the moment?"

Jason looked troubled, which wasn't something that he seemed accustomed to. He seemed more the type to always be in control of everything. Not the one who seemed lost.

"We weren't told," he replied. "Although I was actually hoping that by this time he'd be back. He isn't?"

"No." Stiff word.

Annabeth was about to say something, but the other girl, on the opposite end of the table spoke before she could. "I think we should go back to discussing our previous problem, before Mr. Stark here, so _kindly_ interrupted us."

Why did he have the feeling that Reyna hated him? He left without saying another word after a quick thank you. Then, by the time he was at the door of the big blue house, the shouting had started all over again. And this time, when he walked back to his car, he walked more comfortably and easily. Not really afraid that the demigods around him were going to kill him.

He knew though, that whatever he was going to do next, he first had to go back to Germany. Back to Natasha and possibly Steve. Oh, and also, possibly warn them about what was about to happen. Yes, he would do that first.

-.-.-

17th January

-.-.-

His mood was deteriorating, one more day at the bottom of the ocean and he would go on a murdering spree. His father had told him _five_ more days, _eight_ days ago. Three days ago was when he was supposed to be let go, but no, the _all mighty lord of the seas_ decided to keep him there for longer. Breaking his word as well as the trust he was starting to build.

He had tried to simply _swim_ out of Atlantis, and back up to the surface. He'd been stopped at the gates of the palace. After which he had interrupted the meeting his father was in and…threw a tantrum. Acting as much like a child as he could. Annoying his father as much as he was annoyed. Angering him even further. He yelled at him, in front of the whole damn council —and his step-brother, Triton— and saw no consequences delivered.

Poseidon, once in private, told him that it was the will of the fates that he stay beneath the surface for a few more days. When questioned upon the reason, the god didn't give him any, which angered Percy further. Causing for him to literally blow a wall to rubble. To which Poseidon did get mad, and well, took some of his _privileges_ , and added mermen around him. Guards that would follow him everywhere he went. He made it clear immediately that he did not like the guarding by pummeling them both.

Throughout the three days he had to stay longer, he did everything in his power to annoy the sea god and the inhabitants of Atlantis. All the restrictions he had given himself for the previous days were discarded in place of childish and destructive behavior. His sparring sessions with the mermen trainers always ended with the latter always having to be brought to the hospital wing, to which he would smirk at. When questioned by his father, his reply was always the same, ' _I need to vent_ '.

When he awoke on the third extra day, with a messenger telling him to get ready, he almost punched him in the face because _finally_. There wasn't exactly anything to get ready, as he was not going to bring any of the things of the damned place. A beautiful palace which he might have come to call home once, but now only symbolized another prison. He didn't even _think_ about grabbing something. All he did was put on some clean clothes that would serve him well in the cold weather of winter.

He then made his way to the Throne Room, where he had been told his father was waiting for him. Hopefully the last place he'd need to see of this gods awful place. His father the last being he had to face. Even more hopefully, Triton and Poseidon's wife —who's name he didn't bother remembering— wouldn't be there to bid him tearful goodbyes.

Best case scenario it would be a quick thing.

Worst case scenario, he wasn't really leaving.

When he reached the Throne Room, there he was, his father, standing with his back facing the doors, talking —like he always was— to Dolphin, the Lord of Dolphins. He rolled his eyes at the sight, typical. Luckily enough, Triton and Amphitrite weren't there, so no tearful goodbyes from their side. Apart from the two powerful lords, other high class mermen and lords swam through the hall. No one paid him any heed.

He approached his father and Dolphin. The latter, had stopped showing the most respect once two days before Percy had _accidentally_ injured a whole school of dolphins after he blasted another wall to rubble. The young dolphins were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. Not fully Percy's fault.

The dolphin Lord simply inclined his head to show some respect to Poseidon before he took his leave. Leaving Percy with his _loving_ father.

He was happy to see that Poseidon saw his annoyance. The god held out his palm, in it, a sea orb.

Percy rolled his eyes and exhaled loudly. "Took long enough," he said annoyedly as he reached for it.

Poseidon closed his hand before Percy could take the orb. "Do you know what you have to do?" he questioned the demigod.

Percy looked away from the god, clenching his fingers into fists, balding his rising anger. " _Help_?"

"I didn't intend for you to stay this much longer," his father told him. "If it weren't for the situation with the Avengers, I would have let you go when I said I would."

Something in the sentence got Percy's attention. "What situation with the Avengers?" he almost demanded.

Poseidon should not have said it, that much was clear on his face. "When you reach the surface, you'll meet an old friend of yours. He'll need your aid, you shall give it to him."

"Who?" he asked confused. When Poseidon didn't tell him he then said, "How will I know who I have to help if I don't know who it is."

"When you see him you'll know," Poseidon said. "Now go."

His hand reached for Percy's and then, he felt the orb in his palm. The little sea orb.

Next thing he knew, everything was bending around him, swirling and rippling. The sea god in front of him became nothing, his surroundings became dark. His sense of feeling was lost, as wall all sound. Soon, so was his sight, his smell. He was nothing, in nowhere.

The feeling didn't last more than five seconds.

Every sense returned to him at once. His ears popped, and his were blinded. He felt wet, and he heard the splashing of water on itself. He stood on nothing but water.

He started moving his arms, his legs, keeping himself up, avoiding drowning. His head —his chin— barely above the surface. Water streamed down his face, his clothes stuck to him all wet and—

He cursed himself.

Concentrated.

He felt solid under his feet. Water bending to his will, making a perch on which to stand on. His clothes, dried up in a matter of a moment, no single drop of water lay on him. He exhaled loudly. _Then_ he looked around himself.

He was in a river.

A dirty one, too.

The roads were dry dirt, the air was dry itself. The buildings ruined and on bad wear. One, maybe two people walked the street. It was like he was in the middle of nowhere.

He cursed his father.

 _Where in this damned earth had he been sent to?_

He hadn't decided where he would go, no, the moment he had touched the orb, he had started traveling. His father must have bewitched it to send him wherever he was at the moment. Landing in the river as it was the biggest body of water, apparently.

He swam to the border, where cement and dirt restrained water. Not using his powers to simply will the current to push him. They were new to him. His powers. So old and familiar and so new and unfamiliar. He had tried for years to use them, achieving nothing but warnings from his father to stop trying. Now that he had them back, he didn't know where to start. So long without them he had forgotten what they felt like, how easy simple things could be.

He wasn't going to start relying on them again. He wouldn't put trust in the fact that after all of the mess, he'd still have them. Instead, he kept things normal. Level of demigod-ness as low as possible.

When he reached the wall of cement he pushed himself up, then sat on the ledge as he looked around himself. This place really _was_ deserted. Color blinking then caught his eyes. A bar. _Strange_ , he thought. Nevertheless, the place might be the best shot he had at finding whoever his father had told him to find. Maybe it wouldn't be as hard and complicated as it looked for the moment.

He stood on his feet, eager to get this done with. Hopefully, whoever the person, didn't need such a big favor and all he actually had to do was get a cat down from a tree, or maybe fix a water pipe.

 _Old friend of yours_. The words repeated themselves in his mind. Who could it be. Who in their right mind would come and live _here_ in the middle of nowhere. _An old friend of his_. He realized, none of his friends really possessed all marbles. So perhaps, there could really one of them here.

Just maybe.

He reached the bar, it was open, there were actually people inside, and it actually looked clean. He opened the door and stepped through. A lady was cleaning the main counter, a tv on top of her turned on.

" _Still no word on the whereabouts of Steve Rogers after his public feud with Tony Stark and the Avengers over the controversial Sokovia Accords,_ " the woman on it was saying.

Percy started seeing black. _No word on the whereabout of Steve Rogers_. The words rung in his head, quickly followed by the others. _Public feud with Tony Starks_. What had he missed, what had the Avengers been up to in the past month. Could they not last a moment without him. And what in full Hades were the Sokovia Accords?

 _Torn Between Laws And Accords_.

The phrase of the prophecy whispered in his mind. He was so close to punching the wall, but there was more…

" _Ratified by 117 countries, the Accords place the Avengers under U.N. authority and provide a framework for the registration and monitoring of all Enhanced Individuals_ ," she continued.

Percy rolled his eyes, he knew this was going to happen sooner or later. Apparently it was sooner. The lady on the screen continued talking, but his attention was caught by the door opening.

Two men, one dressed in a military suit that signified he was of some importance, and the other…Percy's breathing stopped.

"…here because the president sent me," the military one was saying as they both entered. "The Sokovia Accords are law of the land now. He's concerned you may have some undocumented Enhanced Assets working for you."

The military dressed man stopped, after the other one stopped. The other one stopped because…it was the exact same reason as to why Percy had stopped breathing.

The two men stared at one another, one shocked and taken by surprise, while the other with a look of pain, betrayal and much deeper feelings. The military man looked between the two confused as Percy was the one to break word first.

"You're supposed to be dead."

.

 **Aehheh, like it?**

 **Took me a while to write. But once I had it going it was...smooth.**

 **Can you guess who this person is?**

 **Hint: it's someone you all know (from the avengers)**

 **I think it's pretty obvious.**

 **Oh and, this story as as of a few days, become my most popular one XD. It's nice, it beat the Demigods at Hogwarts, which is nice. I want it to go further though...XD.**

 **Leave a review, favorite and follow the story, they all mean a lot. And to those that already did, thank you.**

 **Hunter**


	20. Torn

**Okay, so, headsup, this one chapter is like a filler. It's probably boring, but it was actually really fun to write. Oh and it's long, approximately 7,000 words. But...much of the credit, I need to say, is not exactly me. Here's the link to the script of _Captain America Civil War_ : ****wiki/Captain_America:_Civil_War , I do not want to take credit for something that i didn't fully write. Like, thoughts and expressions and all are all mine, but then the words come from the link...most of them. Like I said, it's a filler, and it's not all fully mine, but it's necessary, there's the first and last part which I think is rlly important for this story, while the rest is a big fat filler chapter.**

 **ENjoy:**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _Percy started seeing black. No word on the whereabout of Steve Rogers. The words rung in his head, quickly followed by the others. Public feud with Tony Starks. What had he missed, what had the Avengers been up to in the past month. Could they not last a moment without him. And what in full Hades were the Sokovia Accords?_

 _Torn Between Laws And Accords._

 _The phrase of the prophecy whispered in his mind. He was so close to punching the wall, but there was more…_

 _"Ratified by 117 countries, the Accords place the Avengers under U.N. authority and provide a framework for the registration and monitoring of all Enhanced Individuals," she continued._

 _Percy rolled his eyes, he knew this was going to happen sooner or later. Apparently it was sooner. The lady on the screen continued talking, but his attention was caught by the door opening._

 _Two men, one dressed in a military suit that signified he was of some importance, and the other…Percy's breathing stopped._

 _"…here because the president sent me," the military one was saying as they both entered. "The Sokovia Accords are law of the land now. He's concerned you may have some undocumented Enhanced Assets working for you."_

 _The military dressed man stopped, after the other one stopped. The other one stopped because…it was the exact same reason as to why Percy had stopped breathing._

 _The two men stared at one another, one shocked and taken by surprise, while the other with a look of pain, betrayal and much deeper feelings. The military man looked between the two confused as Percy was the one to break word first._

 _"You're supposed to be dead."_

 _._

 **X-X-Scissa-X-X**

( _Torn_ )

 _Two days before:_

Steve had received Stark's message. He had received the call from the billionaire and answered to him. He had heard his plan, and what was going to happen. He had to agree with Tony, it was a solution to the res he had landed them in, one that would be able to work if everyone within was able to then forgive one only problem, it didn't happen.

The mist did not do what the demigods had promised. Not soon enough anyway. On the fifteenth of January, because that's what it was, the Avengers on Captain America's team found themselves into deeper trouble than they would have ever enjoyed finding themselves.

Tony had put them into this mess by involving Secretary Ross, now Tony was trying to fix it by involving the demigods and the gods, primarily their powers over the mist. The only problem was that it would take some time. During that time, life continued as it had before, in this case, they were still in a tricky situation, where Steve had an aim, and Stark had to stop him and his rogue friend.

Steve understood the man, he understood why at the airport they faced each other off. Primarily only the two of them and then the others joined in. He also understood that the fight that broke out through the Avengers was something that had to happen. Something that at that point, only the gods could have stopped. They didn't, so it happened.

People got hurt.

Steve's friends got hurt.

He saw the fall Rhodes took.

Back in his young days, he would have been dead the moment he hit the floor, luckily, it didn't seem so and with Stark taking care of him, he was sure that he was going to be just fine.

He also knew that not everyone was going to make it to the aircraft. It was fated so from the beginning, from the moment they set for into the airport with such intent.

He didn't hate Stark for trying to stop him, he knew he was doing all he could while he waited for the gods to play the mist over everyone. He was simply playing along the original fated plan, before he managed to alter it with the help of the gods. There was a cost to it.

"What's gonna happen to your friends?" Bucky asked him from the seat next to him. They had managed to get to the aircraft. Only them. He noted how he said _your_ , not _our_.

He stared ahead at nothing but clouds, his brows scrunched together. Worried and tired. He sighed deeply and shook his head, dispatching his view from the horizon. "Whatever it is…I'll deal with it." Like he was going to deal with Tony once the mist did its job. Like he was going to deal with finding Percy after all this mess with the super soldiers was over.

Bucky was not yet done. His face held feelings of contempt and confusion. "I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve," he said slowly and carefully.

He wasn't having any of it. James had been his only friend back during the war. The only man that had stood by him when his parents had died, who had offered his home and his shoulder when Steve would need it. The man that had given him inspiration to be who he was. The one who had always had his back when he was still that skinny man in the alleys.

When he was not yet a soldier.

"What you did all those years…" he started slowly, looking at him with sadness, trying to make Bucky understand what he thought of him. "It wasn't you. You didn't have a choice."

James did not seem convinced. "I know," he told him. "But I did it."

-.-

He felt guilty. He knew he should feel that way, and he did, tremendously. Which was no doubt the reason why he was flying towards a super secret under water prison in the middle of the ocean while he was at it. He was going there, to question certain individuals about another individual's whereabouts.

The guilt had many layers.

It started with Percy with all honesty, he was sure, had the demigod be forced to stay, he would not have allowed Stark to rip the Avengers apart like he did. Had he chained the demigod to a tree until those days were over and made so he never went to the ocean and never did what he was doing, maybe he would have made sure things wouldn't have gone to shit like they did.

Secondarily, the guilt had another layer because of Ross. Yes, he regretted calling him in but…he hadn't been thinking clearly. Being shown that picture of the boy, who had a bright future in front of him but instead found bricks and death as an alternative…it knocked some sort of sense into Tony, that perhaps they should be put into check. Perhaps they weren't as much of heroes as they thought they were. Perhaps they were the same things they fought, monsters.

When he had then realized that it had been the wrong call, he then decided to switch sides, which might have eased his conscience by a bit. The moment Steve, Wilson and Barnes _escaped_ the compound, he had been put on a clock to get them in. That had sucked, and his guilt level had yet risen. He tried to fix that, he tired to fix everything in all truth, but there was no time to do so in so little time.

Some things had to go wrong.

Sacrifices had to be made.

He had most of Steve's team arrested, which had the glass be filled to the brim with guilt, just ready to tip over. At least, he continued telling himself. Steve and Barnes were still out there. Somewhere he had to find and help them. Apologize personally while he was at it because of the fourth reason.

The one thing that had toppled the glass over.

Barnes was not responsible for everything they were now blaming him for. The death of king T'Challa was not his fault. The bombing that had claimed his life and other senator's, was not his fault. Everything he had ever done, was not his fault. Yet he had lead people on the hunt for the man.

He sat quietly on his autopilot chopper, until the air in front of him shimmered. Then light came through and there were faces. A girl with eyes that held older ages than her body. Her blonde curls catching the sunlight in every direction. Her grey eyes swirling like clouds in a storm.

"Mr. Stark," she greeted.

He was close to pissing his pants. "What am I looking at?" he questioned out loud.

She grinned a little, seeming more on the serious note this time around. "It's an Iris Message, communication through rainbow and drachma. Don't worry about it—"

He decided to stop her from talking gibberish, and get to the point. "How long 'till the mist does what I requested?"

"That's what I'm calling to tell you," she said then she looked sideways, someone had called her name, she told the person something in another language, possibly Greek. Then she turned back to him. "Look there was a delay," she explained. "The gods were busy with pr… something else. It's supposed to take effect within the hour though."

He cursed lightly, although his heart was lifting, the water sliding back into the glass. "That's good to hear, kid," he told her. "Well I'm sort of busy so how can I end this..?"

She told him how to and then feeling quiet stupid he wiped his arm, not the bruised one that lay in a sling, but the other one, through the misty air. It felt wet and weird but when he looked at it, Annabeth had disappeared.

He ended up massaging his forehead.

He would never get used to these things.

Magic messaging…

It took him a while to reach the spot but eventually he received the voice on the radio that replied with, " _This is the Raft Prison Control. You're clear for landing, Mr. Stark._ "

Just what he loved to hear. He watched with mild fascination —because he could do better— as the sea swelled and surged as the Raft Prison rose up from beneath. A huge, fortified, circular structure with small lights around the side. Two semi-circular doors opened up in the flat circular top. Tony had his chopper land on its designed helipad and then the doors closed above him.

He got out of the chopper and walked up to an expecting Secretary Ross. The man that personalized his problems at the moment.

"So? You for the files?" he questioned as they started walking. He was talking about the files he had received from FRIDAY, the ones that certified that Barnes was not _responsible_ for what he was being framed for. That there was someone else. "Let's reroute the satellites, start facial scanning for this Zemo guy."

He hadn't taken into account that Ross' response might not be as positive. "You seriously think I'm going to listen to you after that fiasco in Leipzig?" he did flinch, remembering the damage to which he had contributed without thinking. "You're lucky you're not in one of these cells."

They entered this security room with these camera feeds showing different holding cells. His eyes focused on the block that shows the ones of the Avengers. His friends, his _family_. It didn't that long before camera feed became real life and all that separated him and the people he used to hold so close to heart, was a simple thick glass wall and iron bars.

He started to look around himself, taking it all in. That's when he hears clapping and he turns to Barton who looks like he would kill him had he the ability to. "The Futurist, gentlemen!" he flinched internally. Clint was a new addition to all this, last Tony had properly seen him was with Percy, which was a day or two before he freaking retired. Telling them he would spend time with his family before Percy's world needed his whooping ass skills. So he might not be aware of the _good_ Tony had tried to do. "The Futurist is here! He sees all! He knows what's best for you, whether you like it or not," he mocked.

He was not fully in a mood to play chitchat like this. "Give me a break, Barton," he told him. "I had no idea they'll put you here. Come on." He truly had had no idea. It actually grieved him that they'd be put into such a location. People that had devoted months, years and their own lives to saving the world, now treated like complete garbage, like actual criminals.

"Yeah," Clint seemed uncertain. "Well, you knew they'd put us somewhere, Tony."

"Yeah," he agreed, but somewhere where he and Steve could then easily get them out off. "But not some super-max floating ocean pokey. You know, this place is for maniacs. This is a place for…" He stopped himself just in time before he said something he'd regret.

"Criminals?" Clint asked as he stood up and stared at Tony though the bars. "Criminals, Tony. Think that's the word you're looking for. Right? That didn't used to mean me. Or Sam, or Wanda. But here we are."

His pride beat his sense out of him. "Because you broke the law." He regretted the words immediately.

Clint gave him a deadly look. "Yeah."

"I didn't make you," it was like the words were forced out of his mouth, he didn't want to say them, yet they came out like they did. He regretted them again.

"La, la, la, la, la…"

"You read it, you broke it.," he said, something that again, had his pride not been so wounded, he wouldn't have said.

"La, la, la, la la…"

That annoyed him further, the disregard with which Clint was treating him, it was like a life stabbing through his pride. The san flowing out of the bag. Talking back was the only way to seal those holes.

"Alright," he said more decisively. "You're all grown up, you got a wife and kids. I don't understand, why didn't you think about them before you chose the wrong side?" He turned away, getting really close to simply leaving before he either ruined what was left of the friendship with Clint, or break his pride completely. Or maybe both.

"You gotta watch your back with this guy," Clint said. "There's a chance he's gonna break it."

His words hurt, yet he still faced away from him. He was so close to the door. So damn close yet he couldn't leave. _The greater good_ for all of them was pending in this choice. He could swallow his pride to help them, could he not. To help the whole world.

"Hank Pym always said," this other guy started saying, one he was not squinted with. "You never can trust a Stark."

He turned towards the cell and played one of his favorite cards that usually had people shut up. "Who are you?" It worked because it gave the man an idea of how irrelevant his input had been on the problem. Like how irrelevant he was at the moment, no big offense to the man.

"Come on, man," the man said with indignity.

Sam stood and approached the glass. "How's Rhodes?" he inquired, sounding truly interested.

"They're flying him to Columbia Medical tomorrow," he stated. "So... fingers cross." Sam shook his head perhaps he was sorry, perhaps he truly felt guilty about the fall that had been his fault. Although at the same time, who was he to say it was his fault for fighting for what he believed. "What do you need? They feed you yet?"

Sam raised his eyebrows. "You're the good cop now?"

"I'm just the guy who needs to know where Steve went," he said with no dignity what so ever.

Sam laughed. "Well, you better go get a bad cop, because you're gonna have to go _Mark Fuhrman_ on my ass to get information out of me."

Tony expected no less. He fumbled with his phone for a moment. "Oh," he said when he received the notification he needed. "I just knocked the 'A' out of their 'AV'. We got about 30 seconds before they realize it's not their equipment."

"Just look," he said as he showed a picture to Sam. "Because that is the fellow who was supposed to interrogate Barnes. Clearly, I made a mistake. Sam, I was wrong."

Sam looked confused and surprised. "That's a first."

He knew there was a first for everything. "Look the mist is going up in less than an hour and Cap is definitely off the reservation but he's about to need all the help he can get. We don't know each other very well. You don't have to…"

"Hey, it's alright," he said and Tony leaned closer to the window. Sam sighed and looked even more uneasy. "Look, I'll tell you... but you have to go alone and as a friend."

He shrugged. "Easy," he said as a way of saying, _whatever you say_.

-.-

He received the information he had to receive from _The Falcon_ , something Clint did not appreciate very much. Tony knew that the bond they had had before this whole mess was going to be something really hard to get back on line. Between him and Clint, and him and Steve, and him and all those in those cells.

Secretary Ross had followed him out and finally when he was about to get onto his chopper he asked, "Stark? Did he give you anything on Rogers?"

Not that he was going to say for sure. "Nope," he lied easily. "Told me to go to hell. I'm going to the compound instead, but you can call me anytime. I'll put you on hold, I like to watch the line blink."

Ross did not like the response, but all Tony did to appease the stare he was received was smile and then getting in the chopper, sliding the door shut after him, then commanding the controls so that the chopper rose and started to fly away, leaving behind closing doors.

It didn't take long while in the chopper for Tony to unclip the sling holding his left arm. He cradles it in his hand for a moment. Then slowly, he reached out and pressed a button on a panel next to him. The Iron Man suit sprung out, wrapping itself around Tony, starting from that one finger. The hatch opens and Tony does not hesitate one second before flying out of the chopper as his alias, Iron Man.

What he didn't see was a quintet following him closely behind…

-.-

If Bucky was impressed by Steve's piloting skills he didn't mention it. Instead he watched with no expression whatsoever as he parked the aircraft smoothly next to a caterpillar truck on the remote icy mountain top, where the jet's wing folded up beside the fuselage.

In the meantime, Bucky actually got to work at getting ready. He pulled out a rack of guns that were labelled ' _Romanoff_ '. He took a light machine gun, Steve noted. It was possibly his best fit, the weapon with which he was most familiar with. They then both stood in front of the ramp, waiting for it to descend.

"You remember that time we had to ride back from Rockaway Beach in the back of that freezer truck?" Steve asked. Somehow the snow all around them reminded him of that one time. He totally neglected the situation they were in, what they were here to do. He only thought to open up with an old friend.

Bucky almost laughed and Steve was glad. "Was that the time we used our train money to buy hot dogs?"

Steve chuckled as he nodded. "You blew three bucks trying to win that stuffed bear for a redhead."

"What was her name again?" Bucky asked with a smile.

"Dolores," Steve was quick to reply. "You called her Dot."

He exhaled exasperatedly. "She's gotta be a hundred years old right now."

Steve chuckled again and clamped his hand on James' shoulder. "So are we, pal."

The ramp was finally fully down and Steve grabbed his helmet, swinging it on and clipping it under his chin. They both made their way to the entrance set in rocks. The door still open after _Zumo_. Who no doubt had been for some time now.

"He can't have been here more than a few hours," Steve stated, saying his thoughts out loud.

Bucky did not seem reassured, worse doom still lingered in his features. "Long enough to wake them up."

Steve was the one to first step inside, perhaps because he was leading this _mission_ or perhaps because Bucky hesitated slightly. The idea of returning to a place of suffering and hate and anger might not seem the best to him. He led them down into the depth inside a caged elevator which stopped at the bowls of the bunker where the door slid open.

Steve nodded to Bucky and then went ahead on his own to heave the up the cage door. Bucky was quick ready his heavy duty machine gun and then follows Steve down the corridor. Keeping close to the wall, walking slightly turned so to keep his back protected and get a sight into the corridor behind him. Bucky then looked into a alcove full of junk, then they continue up some stairs.

At the sound of a loud thud they spun around, Bucky's gun aimed at the corridor, Steve's shield up in a defensive manner in front of the both of them.

"You ready?" Steve asked as he peeked at his friend through the corner of his eyes, slightly tilting his head.

Bucky gave a subtle nod. "Yeah."

The thud is followed by another, then the double doors are forced to part, iron hands holding them apart. Pushing them apart. Steve was not surprised to see Iron Man staring back through the iron mask. A mask that soon retracted away and showed the face of the one and only, Tony Stark.

"You seem a little defensive," Tony said as he cautiously walked forward, his hands showing he meant no harm.

Bucky kept his gun up, aimed at Stark's head. In the mean time, Steve walked up to meet Tony, his shield still covering part of his body. "It's been a long day," he said to Tony.

"At ease, Soldier," Tony said as they stood toe to toe. "I'm not currently after you."

Steve frowned slightly. "Then why are you here?" he inquired.

Tony smiled slightly. "The mist is soon to do its job. Or it already has. And… Could be your story's not so crazy. Maybe. Ross has no idea I'm here. I'd like to keep it that way. Otherwise, I gotta arrest myself."

Steve chuckled lightly. "Well, that sounds like a lot of paperwork," he said in a tearful manner as he lowered his shield to the side. "It's good to see you, Tony."

Tony's smile was genuine. "You too, Cap." Then he looked over at James, who still held his gun pointed at him, threatening to end life with a move of a finger. "Hey, Manchurian Candidate, you're killing me. There's a truce here. You can drop…" Steve beat him to it. He merely gestured at Bucky to lower the gun, and the latter did so without hesitation, trusting in his fried.

With subtle nods they came to an agreement and cautiously started walking down the corridor. What they didn't know, was that the Wakandan King was there as well, hiding behind a corner and watching them carefully. Thoughts of revenge for the death of his father roaming in his mind.

The two Avengers, and the one friend continued on the corridor, to point they got a glimpse of an enormous chamber. Standing capsules lines on each side of the room, filled with some sort of substance. They cautiously walked forth as Iron Man said, "I got heat signatures."

"How many?" Steve asked quickly, his mind already in the process to calculate procedures on how to take out the enemy, was it an enemy.

Stark paused a moment, like he was confused, but no one could see none of it because of the reengaged helmet and face plate. "Uh, one," he said confused.

As they entered the vast chamber, slowly, one by one, the lights turned on. Each one coming with a loud boom. Hazy, yellow mist descended within the capsules as well as silhouettes. As the Avengers step further into the room, they see men and women, as those silhouettes. Dead, a hole in their head. They look around one another, bewildered.

"If it's any comfort," a voice popped out of nowhere. "They died in their sleep. Did you really think I wanted more of you?"

Bucky stared at one of the capsules. Josef. Steve somehow knew this was the one Bucky had talked most about. _Most kills in HYDRA, and that was before the serum_. "What the hell?" he murmured, more confused than he'd been before.

The man, Zemo, continued speaking, "I'm grateful to them, though. They brought you here—" He appeared in another type of capsule this one different from the others, where only his upper body could be seen. Darkness behind him. Steve immediately on the offensive hurled his shield. It hit the glass, and came straight back at him. "Please, Captain," Zemo said. "The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets."

"I'm betting I could beat that," Tony said annoyed, the need to boast coming out as a mock.

Zemo grinned. "Oh, I'm sure you could, Mr. Stark," he said. "Given time. But then you'd never know why you came."

Steve stepped up his game. "You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?" he asked, demanding for an answer for all the havoc he'd been causing and blaming others for.

"I thought about nothing else for over a year," Zemo said, showing his not to _sane_ part of his head. "I studied you. I followed you. But now that you're standing here, I just realized…there's bit of green in the blue of your eyes. How nice to find a flaw."

Steve stopped his rambling by interrupting and saying, "You're Sokovian. Is that what this is about?"

Zemo shook his head insanely. "Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell," he said slowly. "No. I'm here because I made a promise."

He looked at Zemo, studying him and then guessing, "You lost someone?"

Zemo looked grave, he clicked his tongue. "I lost everyone," he said madly. "And so will you."

A television in front of them buzzed to life, footage started playing. The date _December 16th 1911_ , displayed at the corner the screen. Surveillance footage. Steve knows what it is before anyone and steps in front of it, trying to cover it from eyes that would forever be mad.

"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again," Zemo said in the mean time. "But one which crumples from within? That's dead…forever."

Steve was slightly pushed aside by Tony, who looked at the freeze frame of a secluded road, and at the date. December 16th 1991. He knows that date, Steve told him. _He knows exactly what happened that day_. Tony's eyes roved anxiously. "I know that road," he said. _Of course you do_. "What is this?"

The video played.

They saw the death so clearly displayed in the film. They saw what happened. What Bucky did. That he was and still is the murderer of Tony's parents. They saw it all, and no one said anything. Steve only watched Tony anxiously, his grip tight on his shield, just as Bucky's is tight on the rifle in his hands.

Out of nowhere Tony lunged towards Bucky. Nothing in his thoughts, but the idea of killing the man responsible for making him an orphan at such a young age. Of killing the man that killed his mom. Steve luckily reacted fast enough and grabbed him, stopping him as he was.

"Tony. Tony," he said as Iron Man thrashed within Steve's arms.

Tony stopped for a moment, and turned around to look at Steve. He was consumed by grief, and tears glistened clearly in his eyes. "Did you know?"

"I didn't know it was him," Steve lied guiltily. It was clear so much as what they'd just seen. The fact that he had tried to stop Tony from seeing it meant already that he knew, so it was clearly a lie.

"Don't bullshit me, Rogers!" Tony yelled in grief. "Did you know?"

Steve hesitated, contemplating whether to just lie again, or say the truth. "Yes," he relented.

Tony stepped back, no doubt feeling betrayed. His chin jutted upwards twitchily. Steve could not imagine what he was feeling. The idea of a close friend, knowing who was responsible for the death of your parents, and not telling you. It no doubt broke what was between them. This secret alliance they'd had. No matter whether or when the mist helped them, this was a friendship broken, trust lost. For however long.

His Iron Man helmet reengaged and just as quickly, he delivered a solid iron punch to Steve which sent him to the floor and soon, deflected Bucky's gunfire, reverting it back to him where he disarmed him. He grabbed Bucky and flied across the chamber, slamming him into the floor. Bucky, with his enhanced capabilities quickly sprung back onto his feet.

Steve's shield hit Iron Man before he could land another punch or hit. Distracting him. Then Steve is onto him, pushing him backwards until Iron Man turns and and shoulders him to the floor. Quickly with his free hand he shackles Steve's ankles.

Now Bucky is the one to distract him as he punched him from behind. Tony for retribution lifted him up and slammed him into one of the many machines hanging around the chamber. Tony raised his fist, but Bucky twisted his arm before he could deliver the blow. Rockets fly out of Iron Man's armor and a fireball explodes, breaking at some sustainers above Steve. He is forced to quickly slice through his bonds with his shield as a towering structure of pipework collapsed above him, and roll out of the way.

Just like that, Tony and Bucky were thrown down a level as twisted metal fell around them, showing sparks.

Steve, who had the higher ground looked at Bucky, while Iron Man was busy standing back up and said, "Get out of here1"

Bucky didn't need to be told twice and as he started to bolt out, Tony fired from his suit, but the shots missed him. Steve landed in front of him before he could fire again and perhaps hit mark. In the meantime Bucky hit a control panel some way off, and the silo-styled doors overhead started to open.

Steve tried to reason with him. "It wasn't him, Tony," he said. "Hydra had control of his mind!"

Stark's hand rose, ready to eject a light beam. "Move!" he threatened.

"It wasn't him," Steve said again.

Stark couldn't do it, instead of shooting the beam, he shot in the air. With quick reflexes Steve grabbed his ankle and smashed his shield in the jet that allowed him to fly. Stark then blocked Steve by shooting down rubble on him, then he falteringly flew up the tower.

" _Left boot jet failing,"_ FRIDAY's voice rung out. "Flight systems compromised."

Tony's flying was unbalanced as he rose in levels in the tower. "Ah crap."

Above him, Bucky leaped from platform to platform. Slowly, with stuttering jets, Stark reached him and kicked him and then took aim to take out the Winter Soldier. Steve jumped in the middle of it out of nowhere and deflected the beam with his shield, directing straight back at Tony. Iron Man dropped like a stone and landed on a lower platform.

"He's not going to stop," Steve told James. "Go!"

Tony soared back upwards, but then Steve leaped off the platform and shot a wire towards him. It wrapped around his neck and dragged him back down by Steve's weight. Tony quickly got rid of it once he landed on the platform and then tried to target Bucky with his missiles.

"Come on, come on," Tony said desperately as the missile didn't lock on James.

Then he heard it from FRIDAY, " _Targeting system's knackered, boss_."

"I'm eyeballing it," he said. Moments later his helmet retracted and he shut one eye. Taking aim at the opening hatch above all heir heads. He fired once he thought it was accurate enough and watched with mild satisfaction as the missile hit the giant hinge, which exploded, cutting off Bucky's planned escape route. He flew up the cylindrical tower, and was met with Bucky's swings of an iron bar.

He ducked out of them and then got the Winter Soldier into a neck lock from behind him.

"Do you even remember them?" he asked filled with grief.

Bucky's arms were around the iron ones, trying to get Stark out of it. "I remember all of them," he said, as he walked forwards and pulled them both from the walkway.

As they fell, Steve jumped on to them, trying to deflect the tall fall that might kill them both. Trying to hit against them and push them onto one of the many platforms of the tall tower. Only Bucky landed on one of the platforms, while Tony and Steve both continued falling and then land on the concrete floor besides an opening in the wall were snow fell from outside.

Neither was quick to stand, Steve stood hunched and recovering on a lower level, while Tony stood at higher ground. "This isn't going to change what happened," Steve said to Tony, trying to make him see what he was seeing. Bad things happened, and there was nothing one could do about it. No matter how hard one tried.

"I don't care," Tony said, still grief stricken. " _He killed my mom_."

That's when he felt down to meet Steve, his fist aimed high. Steve from there was quick to get into a high defensive mode. They traded hits and Steve managed to get Iron man in a chokehold, but then Tony lifted them from the ground and slammed Steve onto the wall, from where he fell and didn't immediately get up. That's when Tony pinned him to the ground and started with the harder punches.

Bucky who had fallen unconscious woke from it and stared at the scene for a moment before he acknowledged it. Before he acknowledged the vibranium shield lying next to him. He grabbed it and fell upon them, smashing the hard and resistant metal upon Tony's Iron back.

Tony fell away from Steve, leaving the soldier to stand up, but the former was quick to shoot a beam at Bucky, who held it at bay with the shield. Then he threw it at Tony, where it deflected and flew to Steve's waiting hand. Then Tony engaged Bucky one on one, as Steve turned and then smashed the shield back into Tony's back.

They exchanged hits. Bucky with his metal arm and kicks and Steve with his shield and enhanced strength, to the point where Iron Man was forced on his knees. Which was were Steve threw the shield again, at his old friend, and Bucky caught it as Steve landed a solid punch before Bucky threw it back at him.

That was a mistake on their part. Tony had always been occupied because of the hit received, but this time by simply passing it back, Tony had the time to shoot a beam at Steve, who was sent crumbling into a wall on the side. Leaving the fight one on one, Tony against Bucky, where they traded punches.

Tony shot a laser beam, but Bucky grabbed his arm and redirected it to the walls instead of him with his own metal arm, and then took the distraction to deliver a solid hit at Tony's chest which sent him to the wall harshly. Buck then embedded his metal fingers around the source power of Tony's suit, cracking it. But then regretting it all when a big laser beam shot out of it and he was sent sprawling back. His metal arm completely blown away. Tony zapped him again, sending him away as Steve slowly took to his feet again.

Steve rushed up upon seeing his wounded friend and held his shield up as Tony continuously fried short laser beams. Until he was then on one knee as was Tony and the latter fired a long laser beam straight at the middle of the shield. Sparks and steam flying everywhere.

Steve was enraged, as sense of loyalty surging his strength even though his every bone was aching, even though a normal human being would have been dead by now, the thought of his friend, there, laying half dead, pushed his limits. The sense of loyalty for a brother. Stark may have been almost like family to him for the past eight years. But Bucky had been his brothers for almost seventy now. He was the one man, that had proved Steve the impossible and there he was, so close to being killed for something he had no control over.

It wasn't a tough choice to make.

Tony or him.

Although it was harder when he thought about how he was breaking the Avengers apart. How this fight, however it ended, would forever wound the trust the Avengers had in one another. Whatever this Zemo had planned, it had worked in ways he had never imagined to believe. It had never been the accord threatening to break them apart, no. Like Zemo had said, _when an empire falls from the outside, it could rise again_ , and it had. When Tony had found a solution with the gods, their strength would have been one again.

 _But an empire that falls from within…that's dead…forever_. He was starting to agree with that.

Eight years, he reminded himself. Eight years where he had been alone in this. Everyone he knew either dead or on their sickbed. Everything he knew…history. There was nothing for him, nothing of his. Nothing that tied him to the world before shield came to him. Now there was someone. Someone he had known for his whole life, someone he wanted to keep in the rest of his life.

He wasn't going to back down.

He was going to push further.

That's what he did with Tony, he pushed harder to the point where all Tony could do was take the hits. One after the other, and there was absolutely nothing he could to stop them, to prevent them or block them.

FRIDAY told him just that. " _You can't beat him hand to hand_."

"Analyze his fight pattern," he commanded the AI.

" _Scanning_ ," FRIDAY said as Steve continued to land quick blow after quick and brutal blow. " _Countermeasures ready_."

Tony managed to grab Steve's shield. "Let's kick his ass," he said as he flung the hailed away and then zapped Steve backwards, head over heels. Steve wasn't having none of it though, he rose again, and Tony again blocked his punches then zapped him back down, this time to his knees before Bucky who lay on his back, half unconscious.

"He's my friend," Steve said between gasps.

Tony's expression is unreadable, even behind the mask, as he says, "So was I."

This let's Steve down more than he would rather admit. The ideal that this is what was happening. A friendship, a camaraderie completely broken off. Dead and gone. _Was_.

Tony punched Steve again, then grabbed him and threw his against the gaps in the wall, where behind them it snowed. "Stay down," he said, his arm rising. "Final warning."

Steve knew what he was doing wasn't the rightest thing, but for once in his goddam life, he wanted something for himself. His own choice for his own benefit, not anyone else's. He wanted Bucky to remain a free man and alive. He wanted what he had lost when he had decided to crash in the ice all those decades ago. He wanted it, and now it was up for grabs.

Aching bones would not stop him.

He struggled back to his feet, his face bloody and features weary. He knew he was rising so much but the thing he was doing gave him nostalgia. It was like a ritual. He raised his fists and stared Tony down. "I can do this all day."

As if on cue, like all those years ago, Bucky came to the rescue. As Iron Man got ready to fire another round, Bucky grabbed his leg and distracted Tony. Long enough for Tony to deliberately turn around and kick him in the face for good measure. It was like he was angry at Steve, but would forever hesitate, and what he couldn't force himself to deliver against the Captain he could make himself deliver the Soldier.

Steve took that moment of distraction for his last efforts. He grabbed Iron Mn and lifted him over his head before he threw him against the open wall. Then crawls towards him and punched him before grabbing his shield and bashing the helmet off his face, before retracting the shield and holding it up in hesitation, a moment where Tony covered his blood splattered face just to then find the shield struck on the suit's core.

Tony looked horrified and glowered fearfully as his suit shut down. As Steve lay on the shield and panted for breath. Both obtaining blood on their faces. Steve looked at Tony, seeing what he has lost and closed his eyes, slumping down to catch more of his breath. The shield remaining upright, stuck in the center of Iron Man's suit.

Steve knew, though, they couldn't just stay there and so he struggled to his feet and took a hold of the shield, gripping the edge of it and pulling it free. He stepped away from Tony, who rolled painfully to his side, and then reached out to Bucky, who laid bloody but conscious and pulled him to his feet, helping him up as Tony looked on.

"That shield doesn't belong to you," he said with hate, but something like remorse as well. Steve turned his back. What was done was done. No point in staying to pour salt over his wounds. "You don't deserve it. My father made that shield!"

That's when he caught on to what he was saying. The choice was a hard one for him to make, but a quick one. His title, _Captain America_ , had always meant to _follow the rules_ to him. It had always been a symbol of someone to look up to. The one that stood for everyone but himself, the one that stood for everyone's good.

The moment he had decided to not sign the accords, that title no longer referred to him. He was an outlaw. He was breaking the law, not just any set of rules. He was a wanted man, as wanted as his best friend. He was no one that anyone would like to look up to. He was a criminal. He was no _Captain America_.

The shield, it made him _Captain America_. Without it, he was just as strong, simply not the same role model. He was someone else. He was a fugitive from the law.

He stopped walking, raised his chin, telling himself, _it's the right thing,_ and then dropped the shield. Walking away without looking back, Bucky's arm around his shoulder.

.

 **Oh and yes, sorry for the continued cliffhanger for those that didnt guess who it is XD although many did. I mean, me myself i think it's pretty easy to understand, but you must be familiar with something else still in the Marvel universe. Ill leave it there for now.**

 **Thanks for all of you who are following this story, I am so surprised it is almost at 500. And also to all those that spend their time to write a kind or constructive review.  
**

 **And of course, thank you for reading this far. I would have never guessed...**

 **Hunter**


	21. Old Friend? Say What?

**Heeeeey...**

 **I know I've been gone for a _long_ time. Longer than ever in all honesty, the point is...too much happened in the last month, and in between busy for school and absolutely no wi-fi, I only really got the time to write this in pieces during this week. It sucks. But it happens.**

 **School got really busy, and the problem was also that I spent one week doing this thing called THIMUN, really fun, but, once I got home I sort of just went to sleep because it was very tiring. Then the next week, I spent catching up with all the school work I'd missed, as well as studying for upcoming tests, which were all a pain in the ass. There were also sport matches I had to go to and...well, we got a puppy so that too. Then the week before this we went skiing, and there wasn't proper time to write and yes...no one cares but there was no time.**

 **Thank you so much to all of those that follows this story, as it just reached +500 followers. I know, for some that's not much, especially after so long, but It means a lot to me, cuz I never thought it'd reach this number.**

 **As well as thanks to all that read this far and have been here for almost a year now. Stood by since the beginning, XD.**

 **AND just fyi, this story officially hit the 100k word mark. I'm proud of myself because it's the first, and I'm happy it's the first because so much as gone into this and I'm just sort of proud as well.**

 **So please enjoy, although this is mainly just a filler chapter, and a _lot_ of mental dialogue. Too much in my opinion. **

**.**

 **X-X-Veteris Amica? Quid Dicere?-X-X**

( _Old Friend? Say What?_ )

-.-.-

17th January

-.-.-

 _Old friend of yours_. The words repeated themselves in his mind. Who could it be. Who in their right mind would come and live _here_ in the middle of nowhere. _An old friend of his_. He realized, none of his friends really possessed all marbles. So perhaps, there could really one of them here.

Just maybe.

He reached the bar, it was open, there were actually people inside, and it actually looked clean. He opened the door and stepped through. A lady was cleaning the main counter, a tv on top of her turned on.

" _Still no word on the whereabouts of Steve Rogers after his public feud with Tony Stark and the Avengers over the controversial Sokovia Accords,_ " the woman on it was saying.

Percy started seeing black. _No word on the whereabout of Steve Rogers_. The words rung in his head, quickly followed by the others. _Public feud with Tony Starks_. What had he missed, what had the Avengers been up to in the past month. Could they not last a moment without him. And what in full Hades were the Sokovia Accords?

 _Torn Between Laws And Accords_.

The phrase of the prophecy whispered in his mind. He was so close to punching the wall, but there was more…

" _Ratified by 117 countries, the Accords place the Avengers under U.N. authority and provide a framework for the registration and monitoring of all Enhanced Individuals_ ," she continued.

Percy rolled his eyes, he knew this was going to happen sooner or later. Apparently it was sooner. The lady on the screen continued talking, but his attention was caught by the door opening.

Two men, one dressed in a military suit that signified he was of some importance, and the other…Percy's breathing stopped.

"…here because the president sent me," the military one was saying as they both entered. "The Sokovia Accords are law of the land now. He's concerned you may have some undocumented Enhanced Assets working for you."

The military dressed man stopped, after the other one stopped. The other one stopped because…it was the exact same reason as to why Percy had stopped breathing.

The two men stared at one another, one shocked and taken by surprise, while the other with a look of pain, betrayal and much deeper feelings. The military man looked between the two confused as Percy was the one to break word first.

"You're supposed to be dead."

Phil Coulson opened his mouth, and then paused for a moment, his lips still parted. His head moved to the side a little, like he was talking, but he wasn't. Then he closed it again, and said, "It's really complicated—"

He was stopped by a phone ringing. Percy jumped a slight little at the unexpected sound, so unused to it after a month where there was no technology. He was even more surprised when he realized it was on _him_. That something in his back pocket was buzzing and making a very frustrating sound. He moved his right prosthesis unconsciously to grab the phone on his back pocket, millions of thoughts passing through his head as he did. Slowly realizing the smoothness of the movement.

How the hell did he have a phone on him?

Last time he'd had one was on that little silly trip with Poseidon, that had happened over a month prior. Even then, he had been sure that the thing must have broken due to the heavy rains, and if not that, then the long stay at _the bottom of the ocean_. He hadn't even seen the thing since then, so he wondered, _how was there a phone_ ringing _in his back pocket?_

When he pulled it in front of him, he recognized it as his very own smart phone, one Tony had specifically made for his abilities and limitations. He came to the conclusion that it was all on his father, the phone and all, because there was no way in hell that such a device would have survived through a month at the bottom of the ocean.

He checked who was calling, and found himself surprised to find it be Tony. He looked at Phil Coulson and the other man, the army official, and then swiped to answer the call, even though the former's eyes were telling him to do everything but.

"Tony?" he greeted, surprised.

He heard an exasperated exhale. " _God bless_ ," Tony said at recognizing his voice. " _Where the hell have you been?_ "

"Can we talk about that another time, please," Percy said, sitting next to the general official and in front of Coulson on the table they were at. "The television is on and I have as many questions for you and Steve than you do about me. Let's come to an agreement and say we'll talk about them another time. I'm in a situation. I'll call you back."

He retreated the phone from his ear, hearing Tony say, " _What kind of situation?_ " Before he shut the call down and put the phone face down on the table they were around.

His eyes pierced Coulson with blame and demand. "I _heard_ about you," he said. "Read your files. And you know the one I found the most delightful, was the one that explained your _death_."

"There is a lot that you don't know, Mr.—" Percy cut him off with a look. Then cocked his head to the side, pointing at the elder man next to him. His point was clear, _don't give my identity —however you know it— to the man next to me_. Coulson didn't say his name, instead continued, "If you were to hang around a little more, then we can _discuss_ things."

Percy sat back, his mind having already come to a solid conclusion as to what this all was. An idea, a plan though out by Nicholas Fury all those years ago to bring the Avengers together. But then he thought about the _he's an old friend of yours_ part. Phil Coulson and he had never met in real life. Percy only knew about him because sometimes his name had been brought up by Tony or Steve, and from there curiosity sparked and had him on the ropes for searching about him. Knowing who the guy was, until he read the file of his death.

That was a let down.

But as he rethought about it, the fate might have been orchestrated, and honestly, Percy wasn't as surprised as he had claimed second prior, that it was. Nicholas Fury was some man, and this sort of thing was totally in his powers.

It was cruel though.

Although he still didn't understand how they were friends this way. They were perhaps connected through others, and their friendships, but the two had never previously met. Let alone built a friendship.

"I don't need to hear it," he said at Coulson. "Whatever the reason, it was years ago. So whatever."

The man next to him coughed to get attention. "I'm sorry, Phil," he said, not sounding at all sorry. "Who is this guy again?"

Phil Coulson looked at Percy for a moment before saying, "Agent Johnson, Level Eight."

Percy was the one confused, and ready to bombard him with questions now. "What do you mean?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D., remember," Coulson said with a grin. "Come, let's all go for a ride."

The general, looked further confused, "What, no blindfold?"

"No," Coulson said, "but I'd suggest buckling up."

"What?" the general guy asked.

Phil did it, Percy saw no reason why he shouldn't. He found the buckles at his sides, like those in an airplane, and closed them around his waist, whatever was about to happen, the more prepared he was the better. The general on the other hadn't did not put on the belt, and when Phil nodded his head at the barista, and the table booth started moving downward, he grabbed the edges of the table, pushing Percy as he did so.

It started slow, and then got faster the lower it got. Until it stopped at the basement no doubt. When the rotations locked in to place, and Percy was sure that they weren't going to go down further, he said, "I thought Cap dismantled S.H.I.E.L.D. two years ago at the triskelion."

Coulson unbuckled the belt. "And from it, this rose from its ashes. Free of Hydra. Only those trusted enough were let in, until we expanded more."

Percy followed in the action of removing the belt. "But what for? Hydra fell with S.H.I.E.L.D."

Coulson stood, his hand on the door that would perhaps open up a new world to Percy. One he had abandoned two years prior. One he could get back to after the mess with the demigods and the primordial was over. If S.H.I.E.L.D. still existed, perhaps he could get back in. Find purpose again by helping them.

"You're in for a rude awakening," Coulson said, opening the door and exposing bunker like hallways, men in lab coats walking around, men in bulletproof vests guarding the exits. And just…Agents in general.

"Right under my nose, this whole time," the general said as they started walking through the corridors. "Like a pack of sewer rats."

 _He had a point_ , Percy thought as he walked behind them. He only had to try to understand what was going on, and then from there, see where his help was needed, and why it had to be _his_ help and not someone else's. Why go to all the trouble though, to keep themselves this away from society.

"I didn't even know this SSR base existed," the general continued.

"It was never on the books," Coulson agreed with the general. "I'd like to keep it that way." He said as a way of requesting that the base remained secret. The agent went to the trouble to turn and look Percy in the eye, signifying that the request included him as well. He only gave a subtle nod. Coulson turned to the general, "I'm trusting you with our biggest secret. Now I need you to trust me."

Percy thought this was it, he was finally going to understand what on earth he was there to do.

"Don't report our inhumans," Coulson said, sending Percy off the edge of confusion. "Some battles need to be fought with secret warriors."

Percy wasn't against that ideal originally. The only problem with that though, was that those on the same team did not know. What happens then, is that trust is broken, and loyalty never reached again. Bonds snapped in a matter of seconds. If he had to lose people so that more would make it…he now agreed it was the better choice. Once he wouldn't have.

"How many you got?" The general question Coulson. Percy couldn't see anything of their faces. "I know about Daisy and Electro-Boy, who else?"

His thoughts got even more confused at that statement. 'Electro-Boy', was he some sort of Jason two point o'? And what the hell did they mean by _inhuman_. If they weren't human what on earth were they then if they were such a problem? Aliens? He sure as hell had enough of those.

Coulson limped ahead. Limping was not something Percy had read about him. He'd read that the agent was a healthy man. Something _must_ have happened recently, causing the injury, or else…he had no idea. "You're about to meet one," Coulson said to the general, but Percy knew the words were for his ears as well.

The general, looked over his shoulder, at Percy, gave him an odd look. An arched eyebrow, an assessing gaze. Percy knocked his head forward, like he was asking, ' _What you looking at?_ '

A door in front of them opened. A metal door that resemble nothing more than a high security prison door. Percy's hair stood lightly on edge. Like his whole being stood on edge. A woman stepped through. She looked nothing like a prisoner though, nothing like an _alien_. No, she looked as human as it got. Latina, curly brown hair, fair skin, red shirt and leather jacket.

Why was she classified as an inhuman then?

What could she do?

A horrible thought passed through his head. The word _demigod_ loudly in his mind.

What if she was a demigod. What if these inhumans were all actually demigods and they'd been discovered and this was really why he had been sent here to help this _old friend_.

Then he looked at the girl carefully.

She was not a _girl_ , she was a woman. Good in her thirties. Well developed and all. She was too _old_ , to be a demigod. That's what he thought before he remembered about the Roman demigods. His gut told him, that no, she wasn't a demigod though. No matter the possibility. She wasn't half god, she was something else. Part of something else.

But what was she?

"Welcome back, Mrs. Rodriguez," Coulson said at the woman. _Rodriguez,_ he kept the name in mind. Just in case he'd ever cross the woman again.

The woman nodded in greeting. "Director Coulson."

It took him a moment to fully acknowledge those words. _Director_. Coulson here, had been promoted apparently. Last Percy had read about him, he had seen him to be Level eight. Much like himself in all reality. Now, if things worked the same as they did in the old S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson was his superior. A man he had never met or ever sworn to be under the orders. Percy was taken aback a little bit.

Coulson acted like nothing big had been revealed to Percy, shifting his weight a little between his feet. "Mack couldn't be here," he sends, bringing another player into the game. _Mack_. Talking of which, Percy had still no idea who the general guy was, or what he was doing, or what his friends, the _Avengers_ , had gotten themselves into. It was kind of hard to know when you spent the last month at the bottom of the ocean. "He sends his regards."

Sure he did.

"This is Brigadier General Talbot," Coulson continued, _coincidentally_ mentioning who the guy was. "Acting head of the ATCU. Here's here to—"

The woman —Ms. Rodriguez— cut him off. A bold move. "I know why," she said very seriously, her tone getting hard at the edges. "I watch the news."

Percy was starting to hope he had too. Percy was starting to hope that he knew exactly what had happened between his friends. Why they were split. Why they were in a feud. Somehow, he had the itch that whatever these Accords wasn't it.

Coulson turned sideways, to general Talbot. "We found Ms. Rodriguez in Colombia," he said, his eyes flicking to Percy's for a split second. "She was being a real thorn in the side of the drug cartels, using her powers to clean up her neighborhood, to fight the good fight."

 _Silent heroes_ then. That's what they were. Silent heroes who had _powers_ and didn't mean any harm. At least he hoped. Perhaps, he thought, that perhaps he was sent here for a reason. If the fight against Tartarus was going to go well on their side, perhaps they'd need all the heroes they could manage, and he was recruiting.

He scoffed within himself at the silly thought.

 _Him_ , recruiting.

No, if they wanted extra players they'd send someone more friendly. Perhaps once he might have been the right guy, now, he was certainly not. He wasn't the friendly-looking, or even the open to all ideas type of guy any more. Might have been, isn't anymore. If they needed recruiting, Frank and Hazel would be his best bet. Perhaps even Leo and Piper, but otherwise…not him.

He moved to the side, disliking the back view of it all. Leaned on the brick wall and crossed his arms, his leg crossing over the other. "Put me on your list," Ms. Rodriguez said. "There will be a price on my head."

He cocked his head to the side, like he hadn't heard correctly. _Why would there be a price on her head_ , what could she do that made her dangerous. And what was all this about a _list_? She glanced at him confused.

General Talbot's hands were clasped behind his back. "No one would ever find out about it," he said in a reassuring tone, swinging on the tip of his toes and then back to his heels as he said it.

" _Ingenuo_ ," she said, in what he himself recognized as Spanish. A language he wasn't fluent in, but his years as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent enough to make him understand what she was saying. _Naive_. He smirked a little, liking this woman character she possessed. What he liked even more, was when she started walking through them, and they opened up to let her through.

"I think that means—" Coulson was saying with a grin.

General Talbot cut him off sternly. "I know what she's saying." He then lowered his voice, so that the retreating woman wouldn't hear. So that _he_ barely heard it. "What are her powers?"

Coulson didn't take his eyes from General Talbot as he said loudly, "Elena, the general would like to see what you can do." He finished, turning around to see her back.

Percy turned to, as much as his position allowed him to. He saw it happen. It must have been quicker than light, but the moment he noticed something odd, he focused his senses. Perhaps a bit too much. He'd forgotten the extent of his powers, and right there, he was having a taste of what he'd been missing for five years. That feeling of utter power.

He saw her move, it was only a blur to him, but while she moved, back to the men, and then back to her spot, Coulson's chest hadn't moved a single hair. He hadn't breathed, his heart not beat. Everything was still and he couldn't understand how someone could travel so fast. How that would feel in any case. When all the cells in your body moved at that speed.

General Talbot smiled at her fake. "Any time."

It was her time to grin as she brought out the medals from behind her. General Talbot was sent into confusion as he checked his chest for missing medals. As he looked at Coulson and then at the woman. Ms. Rodriguez then approached him, just as the general went to retrieve his medals. They didn't exchange words as Talbot gabbed the medals and she turned her back, starting to leave again.

"Thank you," Coulson said and then she was gone.

"So she's fast," Percy stated. "That's it?"

Coulson turned to look at him, running his eyes over his position once and then saying. "Yeah," he said. "And she can fend for herself," he continued, his eyes turning to the general. "Not all Inhumans can."

"Okay hold up," Percy said, holding his hand up and standing on both feet. His prosthetic arm still crossed over his chest. "What are Inhumans?"

Talbot looked at Coulson incredulously. "Level Eight, and he doesn't know?"

Coulson didn't turn to the general, instead kept his eyes on Percy, giving him the chance to reply to this obnoxious question. Giving him the chance to prove himself in other words. Percy pursed his lips into a tight smile. "I've been out of commission since S.H.I.E.L.D. fell two years ago. Everything that's happened since, I don't know."

"Why are you bringing him in the fold, then?" the general questioned Coulson.

Coulson still didn't turn to pay attention to the general. "He's proven himself a trustworthy ally. Plus, I think he can be of help in what's happening."

"What do you mean?" Percy was quick to ask. Perhaps this is how he was meant to help. Perhaps what Coulson wanted him to do was exactly what Poseidon had instructed him to do.

"I'll brief you in later, Johnson," he said dismissively, then turned to the general again. "Inhumans like her aren't dangerous. Most of them are regular people with lives and families who just want to be left alone. If you force them to register—"

"It's a protected list," Talbot interrupted. "It's highly classified."

"Like the S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Percy butted in. "Last I remember of the old S.H.I.E.L.D., all classified files were sent to the open public. What if something like that happens to your list. What happens to all those people you say you'r protecting."

General Talbot didn't look happy. "You don't know what you're talking about, kid."

Percy cursed inwardly. He looked like a kid, he would always look younger than he was, and he hated that so freaking much. He wasn't a kid, no matter how much he might look like it. He was in his thirties for gods sake. He wasn't a _kid_.

"Don't call me a _kid_!" he said, raising his voice. "And even though I might not know what the _hell_ Inhumans are, I've got a solid idea on the response people like you have on a kind."

"Nothing good ever comes from putting people on Indexes," Coulson said and when the general opened his mouth to speak, he continued. "I know that because of what happened to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s archives. They get misused and eventually fall into the wrong hands, and then innocent people suffer." Coulson turned around and when Talbot didn't say anything about it he said, "You're about to meet one."

-.-

Hearing that, Percy had thought it would have been in person, he hadn't thought it'd be behind a screen. Coulson had said something about him not being tested against diseases and stuff. He had listened, enjoying the quietness of this _mission_ he was in. For once, the Avengers weren't there in the background making noise. For once it was him, alone.

It reminded him of his former S.H.I.E.L.D. days, where it was only him, and perhaps Natasha and Clint sometimes. But it was mostly him. Nobody else. No one he had to make sure didn't die, and no one making sure he died. Just him. In the field, alone. That's how he worked best. How he had learned to work best. Not as a team, but alone.

Right now, it was good. He was in a room —Coulson's office— sitting in a comfy chair looking at camera footage on his own. It was just right for him.

Most of all, it was quiet.

He looked at the man lying on the bed, late twenties at maximum, with blonde hair and—his eyes were closed. He was probably as tall as Percy himself and clear lines were visible of muscles beneath the shirt he wore. He had facial hair, which was probably because he was in a cell. However comfortable it looked.

 _Much better than what he knew_.

Or maybe it was simply a containment room, not meant to make the one within feel too uncomfortable.

He certainly wished his father had been as generous.

As he waited for the General Talbot and Coulson to get into it and start whatever conversation, he noticed something wrong with the footage. Something was not right. Spending years alongside Tony and his analytical mind had taught Percy some damn tricks, and he knew when surveillance wasn't right.

The man was sleeping, but it was too… It was like he was trying too hard. There was no extra movements whatsoever, not even within the room. Perhaps different sounds or different visuals. It was always that, it was always the same. Until the door opened and the general and Coulson stepped through.

The male, sat up on the bed, showing blue eyes as he opened them, and handsome features all together.

"Well, well, well," General Talbot said. "If it isn't the hothead that tied to kill my bodyguard."

Percy was impressed. He showed it clearly on his arched eyebrows.

The male, possibly _Electro-boy —_ because come on, his self screamed Jason two point o'— turned to Coulson and said, "What's he doing here? Thought this was a _germ-free_ zone."

Percy snorted. Coulson smiled. "I see you two remember each other."

General Talbot moved towards _Electro-boy_ , his hands clasped behind his back. "You being here, is exactly why we need the Accords." That word again. Percy was sure to ask about what the damn these accords were, and when they'd popped up, and _why_. "It's about protection," the general continued.

Luckily for Percy, _Electro-boy_ asked the right question. "Whose protection?"

"Everyone's," the general said, not really sign specific. This started a train of thought within Percy's mind. One he had no intention of following until this conversation was over. "People need to be protected when one of you runs amok. Some of you need protection from yourselves." He turned to Coulson. "Isn't that why you have him caged up?"

Coulson didn't break his stare. "He's under medical observation, general," he said.

General Talbot didn't think so as he said, "I've seen him in the field. He had control issues… _lethal_ control issues."

"Issues that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s uniquely qualified to help him with," Coulson talked back, keeping his cool.

Percy could not see where this was going. If this was really about the _electro-man_ anymore or was it more about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s deserved respect. Percy couldn't understand and he was glad when the man in question said, "How does this registration work? You put us on the a list. Then what?"

General Talbot was pleased, Percy could tell by the glint in his eyes, the little twitch, but he didn't show it anywhere else. "Fingerprints. DNA samples," he said as a way of answering the question. "We run a power analysis to categorize your threat level—" _Electro-man_ 's eyebrows quirked up disbelievingly. Talbot continued, "—Also used to determine health risks."

Percy knew from there on, that there was no way he would ever give in to these… _Accords_. There was no way he was going to let someone take his fingertips. Or for someone to realize that half of his DNA was missing and therefore raise questions about his _alienship_. Most of all, he wasn't going to let some weird scientists in white lab coats run tests on him to _categorize_ how much of a threat he was. Would they know, he would already be on his way to the most secure prison in the world.

He had to, at all costs, keep his identity secret, and most of all, his newly required powers in check.

At the same time, he started to understand what might have happened with the Avengers. Why they had split up. No doubt some had agreed with them, others hadn't. What he didn't fully comprehend though, was what the news reporter had said, ' _Still no word on the whereabouts of Steve Rogers after his public feud with Tony Stark_ '. It made it sound as though Steve was the one that was against the Accords, not Tony, and…it made no sense to him.

Apparently the idea of it sounded reasonable to the man, as he stood from the bed, standing tall and said, "Fine, I'll register. Sign me up."

Coulson approached the man. "I don't think that's a good idea," he said, in a way a mentor would to the student about a choice he was making.

The man didn't turn. "I don't think keeping me locked up is a good idea, either," he said turning slightly before looking back at the general. "Get me the hell out of here, and I'll register and tell you anything you want to know."

When Coulson said, "It's in everyone's best interest to keep him here right now." It gave Percy the idea that there was something _very_ bad going on that Coulson did not want the general to know. What he was displaying to the general was a sugar honied version of what was really happening. What this really was.

"Not mine," the male said, his arms crossed across his chest.

General Talbot stepped closer to the man, getting so close their faces were inches apart. "If you're in here against your will, what's keeping you from just…zapping the two of us right now?" he asked.

The male didn't break his pose or expression as he said, "Absolutely nothing. I could fry that mustache right off your face. But that's just not who I am. Besides, I'd never make it off the base... not without help."

There were no more words exchanged, only the retreat of both the general and Coulson. They left the man standing in there while they took their leave. To be considered. Percy continued watching the footage as he waited for the two of them to reach the office. He watched as the male started walking back and forth in the room. His features getting more and more agitated.

Then someone made a mistake.

They made a loop of the footage, and replaced it with what was really going on.

Percy had a second to think on whether he should move and go check what was happening. He thought twice about it, this boy was not worth _his_ trouble. If he left and the two men came in with him missing…He didn't want to think the trouble he could get in. Coulson knew who he was, there would be a manhunt for him, and all those questions he had never answered.

So he waited for the two men to come back.

.

 **I'm so hyped. You guys have no idea.**

 **Marvel is being amazing. First they give us Thor: Ragnarok, amazing movie for everything, and then...They give us Black Panther! Almost even better, although I think they stand at the same point. It was awesome, and to all those that didn't watch it... _what are you doing_**

 **It's great, _especially that last post-credit scene_**

 **BCs Bucky.**

 **There's going to be Bucky in this fic. There's going to be him in much more depth than I've written him in so far. There might even be too much but to all those out there that like that character...there will be much of him and...**

 **Lemme just...backtrack on what I said a couple of chapter back, about Steve being selfish, like, I kind of wrote into the previous chapter, as actual part of the chapter, but, I need to shake it off, because I'm hungover from it, this might turn into a rant... but I suggest you read if you're interested in the _deep stuff_ of these movies.**

 **I said I hated Steve in the scene where they're in the CIA room thingy, waiting for Bucky's questioning and all, truth is...I didn't understand the man, or the relationship he had with Bucky.**

 **I'm not team Iron Man, but I'm not team Cap.**

 **They both had righteous reasons as to why they fought for what they did.**

 **Tony screwed up, continuously, he lives with survivor's guilt and no doubt a hell lot of PTSD from all the events that happened to him both in the movies and before. He had a shitty childhood and even shittier grown-up life. He messed up bcs of it and when he was confronted on the mistakes he made *Ultron*, he didnt know how to deal with the guilt. When Ross came in with the Accords, he knew it was the only way to put his conscious back together. He didnt even need to contemplate as to whether he should or not. The choice had been made the moment he heard the possibility.**

 **Why, because he has no self control and I don't even blame him for that. Why, because it's who he is. Since his parents died, he had Obadia - or whatevr his name is- to control him, and there wasnt him, there was Pepper, and Rhodey. Obdiah turned against him, had him captured and almost killed him, multiple times. That one father figure he'd had was really only there for the power and the fame and the money, not for _him_. Then Pepper couldnt deal with him anymore and left for some time to think, and he's left alone. **

**Again.**

 **First his parents, and then the second family he built himself.**

 **When he got the opportunity to be put in check, he did it for himself as much as he did it to prove he could change. He fought for himself, but he fought for Pepper as well I think.**

 **Steve...that's a completely different story. ' _For as long as I remember, I've wanted to do what was right. I'm not so sure what that is anymore_.' That's what he tells Peggy in Winter Soldier, and here he's talking about S.H.I.E.L.D. that much is obvious, but I think this was the beginning of his journey to leave _Captain America_ behind, because when he stepped into the role, he knew what he was fighting for, and he did it willingly and gladly, for the greater good. Now, not so much. He doesn't know, and if he doesnt have a clear purpose in his eyes, it's like it's not captain america anymore. It's someone else. **

**And everything goes to hell for him in that movie, in all honesty. His roots to being Captain America are broken. Bcs Captain America was created by S.H.I.E.L.D. in a way, and there they are, betraying him and actually coming out as Hydra. That's a killing blow as to what Captain America was. Then there's Bucky. This person who has been by Steve's side since forever. This person who was Steve's friend because it was _Steve_ , not Captain America. This person that knew him before the serum, and still stuck by him, defended him, when he could have probably been the popular guy of the class. **

**We get to see in CATFA how much Steve cares for Bucky, and vice versa. We get to see the rage from Steve after his death, the guilt. And when Steve wakes up in the twenty-first century, we get to see his loneliness until he finds out about Peggy, but still, it's only him in the end. Until he sees Bucky on that bridge and everything he's known flips upside down, with both S.H.I.E.L.D. and his own emotions and he can't turn his back on his best friend because ' _Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky'._**

 **He can't turn his back and he doesn't, and when he tries to make him remember, and sees it's not working, he tells his friend to simply _finish it_ , because if he turn, then there was probably nothing for him to live for anymore. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s gone, and he'd been living a lie for the past couple of years, why should he carry on, and he lets Bucky almost kill him. **

**When he gets pulled out from the river, he _knows_ it was Bucky, so he goes after him. BEcause he knows that Bucky knows. And he knows he might as well be the only one able to pull him from that edge. From that cliff. And when Peggy dies, Bucky becomes the only one left alive from his time. The only person that ever truly knew him before the serum, that knew him as _Steve_ , not Captain America. And Steve doesn't care if the whole world chases after him, he will not be chastised and not allowed to go after his friend. **

**He does not care if he will break the Avengers apart because, that's his friend, his brother, and he cannot ignore it _when a situation is pointed south_. And he didnt wish it otherwise. He tells Tony in Age of Ultron that he hasnt seen his dark side yet. This is his dark side, and his reason for not signing is just. It's more just than anything. **

**Both his reason and Tony's are just, and, if any of this will com up in this fic, you know what I mean. You'll know what I mean.**

 **And I probably spent 1,000 words on that, but I don't care, I needed to get it out. I could go on but I won't, because what I want to say will simply be in one of the chapters that will come in the future.**

 **So for now,**

 **Peace out.**

 **Hunter**


	22. Homecoming

**Long wait, I know.**

 **But, LIIFEEEEE**

 **Thanks to all those that reviewed on this XD and I know many of you asked when he will know about the baby this is my answer: _soon_ , but not soon enough. LIke possibly the next time the two interact, and I cant promise that or when it'll be. BUT it's soon in the storyline. AND PLEASE stop asking me about it, its getting kinda annoying. Bcs the child is one of the many mistakes of this story and aaha, you guys keep reminding me and 's not good.**

 **This chapter is crap, sorry about that. I know it is and it's also boring. i had to get it out there, and this is the best version there ever will be from me. So it was boring, which is why I rushed it at the end. Next chapter onwards things should be more exciting...i dont know. Staye tuned to find out I guess.**

 **Enjoy...**

 **.**

 **X-X-Paeoniae Exercitu-X-X**

( _Homecoming_ )

When the two men returned, they weren't alone. A smaller man accompanied them, Percy was quick to asses him by simply looking at the way he walked, how he held himself. No soldier, no fighter. No this man was small, didn't possess a good amount of muscles, and dressed like tight and nothing like 'field' agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would. This was one of the smarts of the company. A woman also came with them, this one looked just about the same as the man, and but their body language, he would deduce they were close with one another, _and_ with Coulson.

Coulson, upon looking at Percy introduced them. "Fitz, Simmons" he said, talking to the shorter man and the woman respectively. "Meet Agent Johnson. Level Eight."

'Fitz', held the tablet in one hand, the other outstretching to shake Percy's. "Nice to meet you. But I've never seen you around, how come?" he said, his voice wavering a little as he looked at Percy carefully.

Percy stared at the outstretched hand. What would happen if he shook it with his cybernetic one? Would the agent notice how hard it was, or would he not care since he seemed under pressure just by their eyes having met. He opted into acting like the arrogant ' _I'm-worthier-than-you_ ' him.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. The part where skin and godly metal met stretched uncomfortably. He flinched slightly. "I wasn't aware S.H.I.E.L.D. was still a thing," he said truthfully. "Until an hour ago."

"Okay, well um," Fitz stammered, starting to type on the tablet.

That's when he started explaining. Where both Coulson, Fitz and Simmons started explaining. Not only to Percy, but to General Talbot as well it seemed. Actually, it seemed that the original idea had been to explain it to the general, Percy's arrival was another variable which they didn't care about.

Percy listened and it sounded absurd to him. What he they were saying. A thousand year old _parasite_ was trying to kill them. He didn't understand comprehensively, but he got the hang of what they were saying. This 'parasite' had infested the body of one of their former agents, one who had been found aligning with Hydra when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell two years prior, was now trying to make an army. An army of inhumans, the only problem being that they didn't want to follow him, so instead, he was trying to make his own, reason why, another one of their agents was missing.

She had 'willingly' gone to him, apparently.

The General had another take on it. "The Devil?" he said surprised looking at Coulson, Percy sat on a table behind the director. He wanted to snicker a bit, perhaps chuckled because this man, this _Hive_ was nothing close to the Devil. To Hades. "You're kidding."

"Technically," Fitz started his hands clasped in front of his mouth. He took a slight step forward. "It's not the devil, but many of the myths about the devil are—" He stopped to pick up one of the many books he had used for his telling of what was happening and pointed to a picture. "—derived from Hive and the cults that worshipped him as Hydra."

The General, if possible, looked even more incredulous. He arched his back to look at the pictures displayed on the book. Percy stayed where he sat, a slight curiosity creeping up in him, but nothing major. He knew he'd get his answers one way or the other. For now, he was good just listening. "You're saying a demon possessed Grant Ward," he said, with just as much amount of incredulousness as he had on his face.

"It's not 'The Exorcist,'" Coulson called out, looking as serious and _boring_ to Percy as he had for the past half an hour. "There's nothing demonic about Hive," he continued, his tone very know-it-all. "He's an Inhuman."

The woman, Simmons, then added, " An Inhuman who's made up of an indeterminable amount of Nano-Parasites." The hologram scene showed what she was saying. Putting it to video by Fitz. Percy watched the luminous figure, not completely understanding what it was showing. He'd never been great at analyzing these things. "Those Nano-Parasites can consume human flesh upon contact, but when they make contact with Inhumans, they attack the pleasure centers of the brain, giving its victims a desire and willingness to connect with Hive and to serve him." Her voice and features turned to disgust by the end of her words and Percy didn't blame her, she was talking about something pleasingly disgusting.

This _mind control_ game…it reminded him of someone, all but over four years ago now. Someone had shared blood with and who had completely and utterly ruined his life. Not that it had been his choice, or that he'd had a say in it since he ended up killing himself against his will. His little brother, half-brother, another spawn of Poseidon's, had been under some _sort_ of mind control when he had led him to the forest and then killed himself, and all to frame Percy, and end him up alone.

A scheme, one he was getting more sure by the day had been concocted by the Primordial that was at the foremost part of his mind almost twenty-four-seven.

He stopped his train of thought before he could see the deity clearly in his head.

He needed to keep him out, and thinking about him did the opposite.

They had continued talking, the General saying something about —'Daisy' was it?— he didn't know and he was starting to realize he didn't particularly care. He would do much better phoning Tony, and telling him to come and pick him up. He was tired, he wanted to sleep, he wanted to _relax_ , something he hadn't been able to do since long before the bombing at the restaurant.

He rubbed his eyes, catching another snippet of what they were talking about. Something about an end-game, he couldn't hear them properly it was like something was happening to him. That feeling up being high up in the air, perhaps in an airplane or jet, and ears popping, when you hear nothing as normal as before. It felt like that for him at the moment.

What they were saying was tuned out of his attention-sphere, instead he heard a cackle in his mind and— yes he was going to give himself PTSD right now. He was going to think about black orbs glinting in the red light of Tartarus. He was going to think about the body, of the monster, the armor made of tortured souls. About all he'd lost in fourteen years he had spent down there, at the mercy of a horrible creature.

He wasn't over it.

He would probably never be over it.

And this _Hive_ , it reminded Percy so much of Tartarus it could drive him crazy. It would if he didn't snap out of it. If the cackle in his ear didn't stop sounding in his ears.

Then it disappeared and he caught the last of Fitz's words, "He could create an all-in-one virus that instantly transforms any humans into swayed Inhumans completely under his control."

The General didn't look happy, but at this point, Percy couldn't find it in him to care less. "Do you have any idea on how we can stop him?" the General questioned, walking closer to the screen, a picture of 'Grant Ward' as _Hive_ on it. "I mean, you make him sound _invincible_."

 _Nothing was invincible_ , Percy taught to himself. He had seen Titans fall, heck he had seen the world fall. This man, this _parasite_ was nothing compared to them, although, he got a small understanding on why his father had directed him here, why they might need his help, and how him helping could give them an ally in the future, would he need it. A debt they'd owe him in other words.

"Calm down, General. You'll pull something," Coulson told the soldier. Percy's jaw muscles feathered. He didn't like the tone the Director used. It _irked_ him.

They irked the General too, it seemed, because his face went to annoyed to angry like a snap of the finger. " _Calm down_?" he asked angrily. "This is an end-of-the-world type deal," the General said loudly. "Don't you tell me to calm down. I'm the one that tells you to calm down." Then his expression changed back to confusion. "How are you so calm, anyway?"

Percy would ask the same thing hadn't the General, except he wasn't in the mood to be on the receiving end of Coulson's words. The man had the most annoying tone that made it as if he knew everything and that he was an expert. Truth was, he wouldn't last a minute calm if he knew just the mess Percy came from. He only added to his annoyance when the Director said, "I'm getting used to this sort of thing, plus, we're exploring some options."

This time it was Percy who spoke. "Yeah, cuz options will do you a lot of good in this case," he said. "You need a solid plan."

The General seemed to barely hear Percy's words. "You told me this thing could take out an entire planet," he said loudly. "I got an option for ya…a preemptive strike. This isn't a job for S.H.I.E.L.D., this is a job for the United States Military."

"You want to make that call?" Coulson asked the General softly and slowly. "Go ahead. But you'll probably loose them at the word ' _devil'_."

The General's rolled at the Director. "You think I'm an idiot?" he asked rhetorically. Percy was about to say 'yes' just because, but then Talbot held his hand up, a finger telling Coulson, and Percy to not answer that question. "I wouldn't tell them the truth," the General added, turning back to the scree and crossing his arms over his chest.

Coulson took the moment to say more. "Even if they could be convinced," he started. "By the time we dealt with all their second guessing and red tape, whatever Hive's planning would already be done."

Percy had to give it to the man, slowly he was starting to understand why Fury —it must have been him— had placed him as Director of the _new_ S.H.I.E.L.D.. He was a cunning man, who seemed to always be getting his way. Perhaps it was because he didn't look half as threatening as he acted, but mostly, he spoke silver tongued. He knew what to say and when to say it. A trait Percy lacked.

"We shouldn't act without knowing the last piece of the puzzle," Fitz was saying. "Hive and his hole-in-the-wall gang recently stole something from an ATCU facility in Indiana."

The woman, Simmons, seemed to have been on his side since the start. "Till we find out where that is... Acting without all the information could make things worse. It could be what Hive wants. He was the only thing to survive on that planet, and he survived for a reason."

The General sighed, Percy did too, only internally and not so loudly. "So what do you want me to do?" the General asked, facing Coulson.

"Trust us," Coulson said. The dramatic moment was interrupted by a beeping coming from the tablet.

Fit was immediately on it, tinkering with it and tapping as if he knew exactly what to do for that specific beep. "Oh," he said as he worked. "Daisy's back in the system."

Percy was running before he fully acknowledged it. In fact, he had stood on his feet the moment he had heard the beep, he simply hadn't realized it. It was like he knew what was happening and where he'd need to go. Honestly, he allowed his senses to lead him, like they had led him everywhere else since as long as he could remember.

He was running around the base and he didn't actually know exactly where he was going, except that his senses were telling him where to turn and when to stop. They were acting as a navigator and a warning at the same time. At one point the alarms started moving.

They had no doubt found out that Lincoln —he was pretty sure his name was— had managed an escape form the pod where he was contained in.

-.-

Ten minutes later, Percy found himself in the hangar, quiets just about everywhere. And there he was, the tall young adult with the blonde hair. A muscular bigger man, with darker skin holding him in a strong headlock. He slowed his jog down to a walk, thinking that the older man had him, except he felt it going wrong.

The kid —he wasn't really a kid, but Percy saw him as nothing more— was clawing at the huge arms of the older man. "Mack, you don't understand," he was saying as Percy got closer, but not yet in their sight of line. "I need to go."

"I'll keep your arms pinned down all day if I have to," the older man said, sounding apologetic.

Not as much as Lincoln did when he said, "Don't make me do this!"

But the older man didn't let go of him, and with a defiant yell lightening shot out of him. ' _I could fry that mustache straight off your face_ ' seemed to pop in his mind. Reminding him that this was an Inhuman version of Jason. Lightning, blonde hair, blue eyes. He could mistake them for one and the other, except Jason was buffer, and wore squared sized glasses.

The older man —Mack— was thrown off and when he hit the ground, he didn't stand up again. Lincoln made to grab the fallen comm, but Percy —not yet seen by the former— tackled him to the ground from behind. Then, allowed for time so they could both stand up and get defensive. Lincoln raised his arms in front of him, ready to attack need be.

"Easy there, lighting boy," he said mockingly. "But I can't let you leave." He simply stood, his feet proper, left in front and right back, but his hands were at his sides.

Lincoln took a step forward. He was dancing on his feet. "Who the hell are you?" he asked, and Percy chuckled for a moment, before remembering that Percy had seen _him_ , and not the other way around. He raised his arms then, switching to another technique.

Percy listened.

-.-

It was hours later, bruised up and having seen more than his fair share, that Percy found himself on another jet. Because he'd ended up in one after his long discussion with the blonde kid. Lincoln. _God_ why had he listened. Why had he _agreed_? Of course he knew why. His father had told him to help and he had —for once— done exactly as he had been told to do. No strings attached, no detours of his own.

Although…he hadn't expected it to go as badly as it had.

Things had gone, half good and half bad.

A mission was always to do the job, retrieve the victim and then return, no casualty on your side. This time…

He hadn't known who the big blue guy with tentacles as hair had been, or who he was when he wasn't the… big blue guy with tentacles as hair. Yet when he had laid down in the jet, feeling sick already, he'd noticed the girl —Daisy her name was— break down on her pilot seat as she drove them back to base. He hadn't commented, especially since it was clear she was trying to keep it in.

He simply laid there, and thought over the way things had played out.

The 'Hive' guy, was much more creepier in the pictures than he was in real life. In pictures he looked hollow of life, while really, he wasn't lacking it in real life. He looked handsome in his own weird and creepy way, and most of all, like he wasn't as _bad_ as Fitz had hinted him out as. Of course, after seeing the abominations he had created he had quickly overlooked the outside of the guy.

He _was_ bad.

Not nearly as bad as the monsters Percy had faced in his demigod life, but, it tipped the line of mortal villains he had encountered. Someone with actual power, and worst of all, he was enhanced, which put him in a special space between mortal bad and immortal bad in Percy's category.

Soon enough, though, they had reached the secret base S.H.I.E.L.D. had formed and Percy was told everything more into detail. Also he received a huge rant from the director himself. Apparently 'going off on a mission not cut for him wasn't protocol' according to Coulson, and he 'ought to be instated into the UN's most secure prison', was what the General added.

After being through so much bull for the entirety of the day, Percy decided to let the storm show in his expression. His eyes swirling in an uncontrollable storm. Both of them quickly shut they mouths and didn't reprimand him further. Only after telling him that he compromised everything, and that the 'big blue man with tentacle as hair''s death had been on him.

They were both mad.

Coulson for intruding on the mission, compromising it and all, and the General because he knew he was an enhanced individual, but at the same time could do nothing about it. He couldn't be detained, Talbot knew that, and if he didn't and they tried to, Percy would make them know in no long amount of time. Plus, it wasn't like he could be traced, or actually _detained_ for long enough.

They might have restraints formed for inhumans, but they had nothing on demigods.

There was nothing humanly made that could ever hope to restrain the son of the sea god, especially so soon after he had gotten his powers back. The moment cuffs would be around his wrists he'd snap so bad that the whole world would tremble that it would be felt in freaking Tartarus.

That didn't matter though, because none of that happened.

Actually, Coulson was kind enough to give him transportation. A quintet with invisibility capabilities and stealth mode so he couldn't be tracked. The moment he got into the air he applied both of them, then turned the plane to autopilot, directed towards the Avengers compound. There was someone he needed to talk to. Things that needed to be said and done.

They had no time to waste.

He used the boring time he had during the plane ride to catch up with what had happened with the Avengers and how. It took him a couple of articles and news clips for him to get the general idea of it.

Accords had been constructed, apparently not too late after he had left for Atlantis, and it had been Stark to bring them to the Avengers. That was an unexpected move on his side. What was then worse, some had signed, others had not. And so the team had broken apart. All on the roots of one and only James Buchanan Barnes.

Percy didn't have to guess exactly why Steve had chosen to go after his war buddy, at the time he did. He supported his choice, like he supported Tony's reasoning. What he didn't understand though, was how half of the team could become wanted fugitives in the short amount of time he had been gone. It didn't make any sense, not to him and he hoped so was the case for the others.

One day they were normal people, citizens of America, the next they were fugitives.

It just didn't add up.

Not for the Avengers.

He spent the rest of the journey with his eyes fixated on the sky ahead of him, he connected the dots in this intricate plan the fates had concocted. The whole thing had never been up to their hands. The outcome had been predicted much before and, Percy hated for Prophecies to never be wrong.

Some might have had double meanings in the past, but this one…this one had been straightforward so far, and there was nothing that troubled him more.

' _Torn Between Laws and Accords_ ', the words of the oracle rang through his head, even though he hadn't heard it from her, he still imagined the thousand year old voice whispering those words into his head.

That was the Avengers, now torn between these Sokovian Accords made up to keep them in check. Some had agreed to the terms, others had not, and that resulted in a _Civil War_ between the team. Percy still had to wrap his head around that, because it didn't make _sense_. Not like this.

' _Hydra Will Leave Behind Its Corpse_ ', was this whole detour he had made it. The big blue man's death, had that been the corpse that Hydra would leave behind or was there something more to it. Would there be another death that no one would be able to stop. A corpse that Hydra will created and abandon because that's what they did.

Sighing, he stopped his train of thought, checking the time before he arrived at the compound. _Ten minutes_. He'd need to be in a clear mind when he met Tony again, and well, questioned him about what the hell had happened in more detail. How things had managed to get so fucked up in so little time.

-.-

He had expected to find Tony on the landing pad, arms crossed and broody face on. Truth is, no one was there when he got there. This almost wounded his pride before he remembered that serious things had happened in the past weeks and, Percy was not the top of the problem. The billionaire might need some time to himself for the time being and Percy gave it to him.

It was late anyway. The moon was in full bloom and the corridors silent. He didn't want to disturb. Plus, he was dead tired and seriously needed rest.

He quietly and softly made his way to his floor. He presumed that's what he'd call it for a while, since Steve was out of the country, a _Fugitive_. He still got surprised at hearing the female voice instead of the male one in the elevator, responding to his level request.

"Please don't mention it to Mr. Stark that I am back," he requested slowly, a small yawn on his way. "I need to rest, I'll meet with him tomorrow when I've regained my strengths."

"As you wish it, sir," FRIDAY replied to him in her usual British accent.

God he had preferred Jarvis over her. How he missed the AI, especially since Vision was the alternative. The same voice, but the character…damn the character was sour.

He walked down the silent corridor, free of any agent, no one in the rooms that was some times occupied by Steve Rogers or Sam Wilson. It felt empty, even though the super soldier and the veteran didn't always sleep over at the compound, preferring their DC apartments over the over luxurious lifestyle that came with being friends with Tony Stark.

When he walked into his room and switched the lights on, he wasn't surprised to see that nothing had changed since the last time he had been there. He had his own apartment, somewhere in New York but…he had spent so little nights in there that he had to use a gps to find it every time. He slept way more often at his sister's or what used to be his childhood home before Tartarus had happened. Then the Tower, which was were he'd been before, and then there was the compound. He kind of moved with Tony.

He wasn't so sure why, but, it kept him interested in life.

Other wise he didn't think there would be any reason really.

He looked through his wardrobe, finding some joggers and a comfortable looking hoodie before eating to the bathroom because he'd need a quick shower to wash off the blood, and he'd need a cleaner shave before he so much as looked Tony in the eye again.

He could only imagine how that conversation was going to go.

They had both things to answer to each other, and perhaps, Percy had more. He had lied to the man after all, telling him he'd stay when really he would leave through the night. He had been MIA for the past month, no word to or from. Tony had just as much regarding what had happened with the Avengers.

He hoped they could satisfy each other in this. That they could both answer to each other and come to a proper solution.

It wasn't long, after having both shaved and showered, that Percy crashed.

.

 **SO yes, boring and rushed.**

 **Review and follow..? Idek know Why i'm asking anymore.**

 **ANYWAY...**

 **Infinity War is at our doorsteps !**

 **And I can't freaking wait. Literally, it's all das on my mind, this is so amazing. I'm going on the 28th and it can't come any slower bcs time is not passing. It's less than a week goddammit.**

 **I won't spoil anything after it for at least a month, but...after that, I'm going to incoorporate the whole thing into this story. I'm going to incoorporte the whole Avengers reunion (if there will be one) into this story and hopefully follow a certain storyline that also follows the events that will happen in AIW.**

 **I cant fu**ing wait.**

 **Dammit.**

 **Hunter**


	23. Back on Track

**Love.**

 **Hate.**

 **Idk where that was going to go, yikes.**

 **So um, yeah just enjoy I'll rant at the bottom.**

 **.**

 _Previously on Ageless Diversity:_

 _"Please don't mention it to Mr. Stark that I am back," he requested slowly, a small yawn on his way. "I need to rest, I'll meet with him tomorrow when I've regained my strengths."_

 _"As you wish it, sir," FRIDAY replied to him in her usual British accent._

 _God he had preferred Jarvis over her. How he missed the AI, especially since Vision was the alternative. The same voice, but the character…damn the character was sour._

 _He walked down the silent corridor, free of any agent, no one in the rooms that was some times occupied by Steve Rogers or Sam Wilson. It felt empty, even though the super soldier and the veteran didn't always sleep over at the compound, preferring their DC apartments over the over luxurious lifestyle that came with being friends with Tony Stark._

 _When he walked into his room and switched the lights on, he wasn't surprised to see that nothing had changed since the last time he had been there. He had his own apartment, somewhere in New York but…he had spent so little nights in there that he had to use a gps to find it every time. He slept way more often at his sister's or what used to be his childhood home before Tartarus had happened. Then the Tower, which was were he'd been before, and then there was the compound. He kind of moved with Tony._

 _He wasn't so sure why, but, it kept him interested in life._

 _Other wise he didn't think there would be any reason really._

 _He looked through his wardrobe, finding some joggers and a comfortable looking hoodie before eating to the bathroom because he'd need a quick shower to wash off the blood, and he'd need a cleaner shave before he so much as looked Tony in the eye again._

 _He could only imagine how that conversation was going to go._

 _They had both things to answer to each other, and perhaps, Percy had more. He had lied to the man after all, telling him he'd stay when really he would leave through the night. He had been MIA for the past month, no word to or from. Tony had just as much regarding what had happened with the Avengers._

 _He hoped they could satisfy each other in this. That they could both answer to each other and come to a proper solution._

 _It wasn't long, after having both shaved and showered, that Percy crashed._

.

 **X-X-Retro en Semita-X-X**

( _Back on Track_ )

-.-.-

18th January

-.-.-

Percy awoke aching the next day, and it was everywhere. Not only where he had bruised up the day before, but all his muscles ached. His body felt heavier and more rugged than it had the day before. He quickly came to the conclusion that spending one month at the bottom of the ocean might have that effect on someone. If not that, then he was simply exhausted and frankly had every right to be.

He didn't bother changing, it wasn't like he was in his boxers and shirtless anyway. He wore appropriate clothing, or well, on the line of appropriate since he was covered but yet not formal. Ah whatever, he wore the joggers he'd used to sleep in and, since he'd thrown the hoodie off, it wasn't as sweaty as the shirt underneath. He could always say he'd gone for a jog if it came to questions.

He chuckled a little to himself as he tied on a pair of running shoes and placed a glove on top of his right hand, he didn't yet want to be questioned on the new prosthesis. Here he was, worrying about what he was wearing when really he should have been worrying about the dooming conversation with the billionaire that had been _dooming_ over him since he had gotten out of the water. He was stressed.

When he got into the elevator he didn't hesitate to ask FRIDAY: "Where's Tony currently?"

"Base level of Mr. Stark's recovery physiotherapy room," the female British voice replied smoothly.

Percy could only wonder why, but nonetheless he made his way to the area.

When he got there he felt the double presence without really trying to.

His powers were something he still needed to learn to control. He would need to learn how to keep them in without killing himself, and at the same time, let them out softly without killing anyone on the outside. He needed to learn how to channel them and focus them for things that mattered, rather than this.

Another time.

Then he felt the second person move away from the first, and Percy, acknowledging it wasn't Tony, slid behind a wall, just in time to see Rhodes _in a wheelchair_ passing by. He held his breath. What the _hell_ had happened to him? Why were his legs in braces and why was he in a wheelchair? He let loose the breath once he was gone, this would be something else Tony would need to explain. _In detail_.

Had there been actual casualties or was the colonel the worst outcome there was as a result of this _Civil War_ between the Avengers. Had others ended up worse. God he didn't want to even think about it, but…he needed the answer to that question, so he could only move up and along the corridor. Until he reached the doorframe to the vast and spacious room.

A recovery room more than a gym now. Perhaps for Rhodes.

Percy lingered in the doorway, he could see Tony just fine. Sitting at the desk behind a screen. A letter in his hand, and he looked…terrible. His right eye had a circle around it, where — gods he didn't want to know what — had hit pretty hard. His forehand held a scabbed scar and the side of his face too, and his expression in general…it was exhausted, depressed, and just so _done_ with it.

Then FRIDAY's voice rang through the room as she said, "Priority call from Secretary Ross. There's been a breach at the Raft prison."

Time stopped for a minute as he acknowledged what that meant. The Raft prison was about the most secure prison in the whole world. It was submerged under freaking water and if the Secretary was calling Tony about it…Something heavy settled in his gut as he connected the small dots. Had the 'Rogue Avengers' been sent there, those that had been caught anyway because—because _There's been a breach_.

"Yeah, put him through," Tony said and, Percy wanted to hug the man for sounding so down. His usual quirkiness was not there, and he wanted to know exactly why.

The Secretary's voice came through and Percy dreaded it was the same voice that had initiated this Civil War amongst them. "Tony, we have a problem," he told him.

"Ah, please hold," Tony said, trying for a joke, trying to sound as if nothing was happening but…Percy was sure that whatever the letter on the table was, a lot was going through his head at the moment, and making jokes, being his old self, it was just a mask.

"No, don't," Ross's voice came through before Tony clicked the hold button and watched the line blink on the phone.

His hand rested on his forehead, his head turning sidelong to look at the runner phone on the desk. Looking so old amongst such new technology. It was easy to put one and two together to understand Steve had sent it. Tony still didn't see him.

So he stepped over the threshold and carefully said, "Tony?" The billionaire didn't jump. He _had_ seen him, just hadn't bothered to acknowledge him.

Tony didn't say anything and Percy approached him further, Tony swung on the chair and handed Percy the letter he had been reading. "All the answers you need."

Percy held the fragile looking paper into his hands. He looked at the first word written in Steve's neat handwriting, ' _Tony_ '. This wasn't his to read. He set it down and looked at Tony. "You know I'm dyslexic right?" he asked rhetorically. "I think that…by the time I'm done reading that you'd fall asleep." He grabbed one of the nearby chairs and sank into it. "Tell me what happened."

Tony looked at Percy a split second longer. Then grabbed the letter and placed it in front of him, and turned on the computer. He typed in two words and then turned the screen for Percy to see. In there he saw the picture of a man who Percy was aware, had not been a man at all.

"Know him?" Tony asked him after a moment. Percy nodded subtly, he knew the man only on the surface, which was what little Steve had told him. "Killed my parents. Turns out my father wasn't drunk, that he wasn't the reason my mother died. Why I became an orphan at sixteen. _This man is the reason_. Cap knew— didn't tell me. That's what happened. He chose his little war buddy over the rest of us. One man over all of us."

"He must have had his reasons—"

"Don't take his side on this!" Tony hissed. "Or leave, I can't stand someone else telling me that _it wasn't him_. It was him, and he'd be dead now if it weren't for Rogers."

Percy bowed his head, just after taking a glance at the old picture of a handsome man, in a war uniform. Ready to go. "This is between the three of you," Percy said. "I won't side with either of you, but rather, why now? Don't you think it's a little weird, a little off that this mess happens right _now_."

"The Accords aren't the problem," Tony told him dismissively. "They were _never_ the problem." He sat back in his chair, just as Percy clasped his hands and inclined himself on his elbows on knees. Tony looked at him, his lips twitching as if he was biting the inside of it. "If this man," he pointed a stiff finger at the screen. "If this man hadn't popped out of the grid back in DC two years ago, Cap would have signed. This whole mess wouldn't be happening. But…no, he had to go outside the law for this man."

Percy didn't break eye contact with Tony. "Look I'm not saying I'm on his side, because I'm not," he said slowly and carefully. "But he must have had a reason. Come on, you know Steve, he doesn't do something just because." He sat back too, crossing his arms over his chest. "You know, I'm actually surprised that you were the first to sign, I would have thought that roles between you and Steve would have been opposite."

"I had my eyes opened," Tony said without hesitation, and before Percy could even open his mouth to ask him what exactly it was that he meant, he added, "What will you do? Sign?"

Percy chuckled, a smirk. Shook his head slightly, closing his eyes and looking down at his legs before looking back at Tony, his head slightly tilted to the side. "Ah no," he said. "Even if…I think it's right we do but…I can't promise _myself_ I won't lose control over my actions, much less an entire nation."

"They'll come for you," Tony said. "The moment they see _Gladiator_ back in the fight, they'll want your sign. They'll investigate who you are, get your identity. Eventually start blackmailing you. You know that's going to happen, it was going to one day sooner or later."

"They can try," Percy said slowly, placing one of his hands on his cheek to support it as he leaned his elbow on the rest of the chair. "And I'd rather it be later than sooner."

Tony's fingers twitched on his armrest. His foot tapped on the floor. Damn it was like the man was worse than Percy in this case. "You know," he started, something close to remorse in his voice. "I tried fixing the situation with the Accords. I went all the way to Long Island, where you said your camp was. Got it, chatted them up, convinced them. They were going to use the Mist —or whatever it's called— and make it go away. They didn't. Turns out it failed, _something holding against it_."

Percy didn't want to think what that something could have been. It was morning and he still hadn't eaten. He was in no shape to think about what it could mean. "Well," he said. "At least you tried to fix it. From what I've gathered, Steve didn't. He just went for it."

There was a long silence. A long pause where Percy looked back at the man on the screen. The picture was definitely a scan of an old picture taken with one of those very old camera. Black and white, the man in the picture looked as if he had the world at his feet. Handsome, his hair tidily swept to the side and back. Groomed and ready to go to battle. His uniform worn at perfection. The cap on his head slightly tilted to the side, giving him a trouble-maker expression.

Handsome.

But something had been done to this man.

Percy glanced at Tony, he too had his eyes fixated on the screen. On this man who…had done a lot.

He removed his hand from his mouth. "I'm sorry about your parents, Tony," he said solemnly. "They seemed like good people."

Muscles twitched in Tony's jaw. "You and me both."

Percy hated himself for what he said next. "Perhaps though, you might want to start considering that this man—" He gestured to the screen. "—and the man Steve is now helping… That he isn't the same man responsible for their death."

"Steve said the same thing, Jackson," Tony said monotone. "I'll give you the same answer I gave him, ' _I don't care_ '. He killed my mom."

Tony wasn't looking at him. Percy rocked back and forth on his chair. He could relate. He too wanted revenge for the death of his own mother, but he knew there was no way he would ever get it fairly.

"Well, um," he stared carefully. "I had a talk with my f— uh... the sea god, _Poseidon_. Some time ago really. We'll need weapons, which means we will have to go to the um…camp. Request for some. They'll take the order, no fees."

" _No fees_ ," Tony repeated. "I would damn hope so. Already we're in this unwillingly, then if we had to pay to keep ourselves safe. Goddam right they're building for free."

Percy smiled fondly. The Tony he remembered was starting to resurface. He tried to focus on that rather than what it would mean, going back. The promise he had made himself in the heat of dilemma under the ocean. That he was willing to forgive one of them, someone who had always been special to him— He kept his mind on track.

The smiled turned to almost forced. "The god also suggested that, you could help," he said. "Use some of your _skills_ and advanced technology to come up with better designs. Also I'm sure you'd get along so well with the son of Hephaestus. His name is Leo. He… _gods_ he must be a fan of yours."

Percy watched as Tony paused for a moment, like he was recalling something that had happened not so long ago. "Elfish features, latino?" he asked, gesturing to his head.

He smiled lightly, nodding his head. "Yeah that's him."

"Totally," Tony said. "The guy couldn't keep his lips shut after I introduced myself— You know, that doesn't matter. Tell me about what happened to you. What led you to just— _leave_. What happened after and…I see you've got a new arm…?"

Percy looked down at his right arm. He had placed a glove on top of it to cover it from sight, he had purposely worn a loose sweater that reached his wrists and over for the same purpose but he could see, the sleeve had rolled upwards on his arm, and skin tone could be seen through. He thought twice about pushing his sleeve down, and instead, took off his hoodie, remaining with only the thin shirt —still sweaty from his sleep— and then removed the glove at his hand.

Tony frowned at it. "Damn," he said, pushing the chair so that he was closer to Percy, to the arm which he kindly set on the table. Knowing full well how much Tony would be curious to see the extent of it. "This looks damn realistic. You need to let me run some scans. I need to see how this was made."

"Gods made it," Percy told him slowly. "I'm not sure you'll learn everything there is to know about it, like perhaps—" He triggered the response in the arm. Watching it as it turned a black metal and the screws holding the plates together could be seen.

Tony whistled, appreciatively. "God above," he said. "I'm not even asking. You'll come down to the lab a couple of times when I ask, okay?" Percy smirked, nodding. The arm turning back to _camo-mode_. "That's great. Does that mean that it's connected directly to your—"

Something stopped him. He seemed to again, wanting to bite his tongue or the inside of his mouth and Percy could only wonder why. He turned around, and pushed his chair in front of the screen, still displaying the picture of _James Buchanan Barnes_. He closed the file, and then shut the whole computer down. He stared at the black screen.

"It' connected to your brain right?" he asked Percy. "To your nerves and all."

Percy was confused, and it delayed his response. "Yeah," he said carefully. "I mean, I need to send input down the nerve from the brain to actually move the thing. As well as, if I bang it somewhere pretty hard I _feel_ the bang. Although not as acutely as if it were real."

Tony turned to look at him again, leaving his hand on the desk. "That's great," he said, and he seemed to mean it. "And say, hypothetically speaking. If most of the whole thing was blown straight off, say by one of my beams. How bad would that be?"

Percy thought about it. His eyes slightly widening as he actually _thought_ about how painful that would be. The scorching hot metal attacked to his skin and everything else that went inside his body. "I think it'd be like losing my arm all over again. Maybe worse. Why do you ask?"

"Research," Tony said, his eyes lighting up. "Just want to know the criteria that thing has. You know, in case you ever lose it, need another one."

Percy smirked. "You'd build me one."

"I'd add the ability for it to display Netflix and sing songs to you when you asked for it. Oh, and make it attachable and not. So you'd take it off. It'd be much cooler than that one. You have no idea. I'd also make it so you wouldn't feel the pain, although you'd feel like it was the real thing."

Percy was still smiling. "This is a good one," he told Tony. "But I appreciate knowing you'd put work into it. It's nice to know I'd have a backup." There was some silence again, where Percy eyed the phone. Tony caught him looking at it, and the letter.

"He wishes things had been different— call him if I need him," Tony said, the paper between index and thumb. His head tilted to the side, eyes on the frail paper. "A resignation letter in other words. The Avengers are nonexistent. Unless you want us to form our new and smaller boyband continuing just you, Vision and myself, since Rhodes is _incapacitated_."

About that… "What happened to him?" Percy asked slowly, an idea forming in his mind on how to use the phone, but he put it to the side for a moment. "Did the suit malfunction or anything?"

Tony shook his head, the letter still between grasp. "Vision was aiming at Sam, hit the arc reactor on Rhodey's suit instead. I tried catching him but… It was like I was there just to watch him die."

"What about Thor?" Percy questioned. "Any word from him? Or Bruce?"

Again, Tony shook his head. "It's like they disappeared, I tried getting a hold of them but…nothing."

"Okay well," Percy said glancing at the runner phone. "I know this might not seem like the best time. I know you're still hurting but…might be a good time to call up Steve and tell him to come back. I can do it if it upsets—"

"No," Tony said sternly, yet not too sharply. "I'm not using that phone— _no one_ is using that phone. I need to heal and I don't want to see him. I don't want to hear his voice, I don't want to know where he is, or what he needs. I won't be the one calling. Give me a break. Call me weak or whatever, but I need this."

Percy didn't push it.

"Then it's just me and you," he told Tony. "But we have to start going to the camp. Before the end of the week."

"And we will."

-.-

Put curiosity and boredom together, you've got a problem and a solution in one. Curiosity will drive away the boredom, but…you never know what you're going to find and Percy was fully aware of that when he sat down behind a screen later that day, ready to know more about a person that he might as well say, had caused the mess the Avengers were in at the moment.

Not James Barnes or the Winter Soldier, no, he wanted to know both stories.

With the dump Natasha had done two years prior in DC, he could find about anything that appertained to both Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D.. So far he had never gone into the topic of this enigma, of this abnormality. Mostly for Steve's sake, he wasn't sure he would like for Percy to know, but then Barnes had not been his problem. Now…the same could not be said.

Barnes was the reasons the Avengers had split. Perhaps not entirely, but superficially, if Barnes had never come out as the Winter Soldier, Cap might have signed those Accords. Percy was positive that he hadn't signed because singing meant he'd need permission to search for a highly trained assassin, one which would then be forced into a trial, and Steve would have none of that if he could.

Of course there were other, possibly more rational reasons as to why each one of them had chosen the side they had, but that was beyond the point. Up until now, Percy had never believed that Steve would actually find him. He knew from experience that when someone as highly trained as he was, didn't want to be found, then he wouldn't. So he had never really thought what it would mean to have someone like him patrolling the corridors.

Now however, the thought did come through him and…he wanted to be aware of who and what he was, before ever really even seeing him in person. He didn't care if this was him invading the privacy of another man, but if he was going to have a super assassin anywhere near him, he wanted to know the most about him as he could. He wanted to know how to take him down and how to make him feel welcomed.

Perhaps he wouldn't need the information for months, maybe years, but on the other hand, perhaps he'd need it in days, weeks and one could never be too ready.

He wouldn't let what he'd see blind his judgment when he'd actually meet the man in person, but he would know it and it might as well save his life.

He knew it'd be a long night, but…if it meant that at least one of them —the Avengers who weren't on the run— could get an insight of what Steve believed, then he'd do it. To understand where he stood and why he'd do what he did. He knew it wasn't going to be pretty but…it wasn't like there was anything more productive he could so he typed in the name in the archive, and FRIDAY pulled out all the files about him.

Percy said, "Scan them and put them in a chronological timeline, please."

A bar loaded up on the screen and at one hundred percent, the files on display were arrayed differently.

He read about him, and then watched cameos from the war. He laughed when he saw Steve, and frowned when he saw what it used to be like for him. His friendships and all. All he had to leave behind when he went into the ice. He kept his attention more on the sniper, James Barnes, than Steve. That was who he was watching the clips for, not the Captain.

He stopped the clip at a close up of the ID number on one of the targets around his neck. Three-two-five-five-seven-zero-three-eight. Sergeant. He looked at the other one and found it was not his own, but rather, it was Steve's. This somehow had Percy grinning at it. The two had been close, that was visible enough.

When he continued playing the video again, Barnes was looking at the camera as he placed the targets inside his blue coat. Possibly to shield it away from him. Definitely something Percy hadn't needed to pick up on. Although he was glad he did.

The clips of the war continued, until, the Howling Commandoes were still together, but Barnes was missing from them. This is where he decided to stop watching the cameos, and go on to HYDRA's side of the story, where it continued into a much darker path.

He read the documented diary of how the Sergeant was found at the bottom of the ravine, and then brought to life. How he didn't remember anything about his life, but his combat skills were still as they had been before. Their decision making, and the process of putting him to sleep until an efficient way of subduing him could be found.

After that he skimmed through it, what they'd done and the missions he had carried out for them. At one point his brain dispatched itself from his body and he was reading, but he wasn't acknowledging the words. He was just thinking, about what that was like, because he'd had a very similar experience.

Instead of being wary of him, of finding out what kind of persona this James was, Percy found himself in his shoes. Wanting to meet him, and wanting to help him. Perhaps the extent hadn't been the same, but it didn't mean that Percy didn't understand what it was like, to lose themselves to some _thing_ else and if he could help another man find peace after that. To show him that, there _was_ a way.

He wanted to do it.

He wanted to meet James Barnes and befriend him. He wanted to _know_ him.

.

 **Hate me for this last part if you will... I can't control your emotions, but I think that it's necessary for later on in the story where it might get darker, hopefully not too much.**

 **I am super excited because this story is four people away from 600 followers...another landmark.**

 **And life is spiraling down because exams coming up in two weeks and I AM NOT ready. But I will be.**

 **AND can we just talk: Infinity War...**

 **Okay spoilers ahead (not major) Possibly idk read at your own risk:**

 **I am not happy. I was mad at the end of the movie and it took me some time to get over it. (SPOILER)** I was rlly mad cuz bucky **(SPOILER DONE) and screw it that was horrible.**

 **That was rlly bad.**

 **Infinity war will be incoorporated in this fic, althoguh it might take a while before I get to _that_ point. If you know what I mean. Hopefully enough time that the next Avengers movie is out as well. I mean that'll be only 12 chapters, cuz twelve months so I think I _can_ do it. **

**Mmh.**

 **Hunter**


	24. Going Back

**Hola!**

 **XD**

 **So as I mentioned in the AN that was instead of this chapter... I am rewriting/editing the first chapters, I've done up to chapter 5 so far, working on chapter 6. I noticed, this has _lured_ in some more viewers and followers, cuz...honestly, the first few chapters are just _cringe_. Were* Now, they're much much better. **

**So 630 followers, XD thank you.**

 **HERE goes nothing.**

 **.**

 **X-X-Reversusque-X-X**

( _Going Back_ )

-.-.-

29th January

-.-.-

It was actually more than a week later that Percy finally found himself on a road he had never thought he'd go on again.

The first two days after their talk, Percy hadn't seen Tony at all. Then the day after, Tony had left for some unnamed business he had. So that's what Percy had gone by and after four days —when he returned—actually figured he'd gone to try to make things right with his woman, one by the name of Pepper Potts. Great emphasis on _try_ , as he came back in a sour mood and in no condition to have a trade meeting with some 'hostile' and 'arrogant' demigods.

That sour mood continued to the following days and, Percy didn't blame him. He didn't rush it. He knew, that if they were long behind schedule, one of the gods would not be too bothered to send a message or simply barge into his life to remind him why he was even allowed to breathe with them knowing. So he didn't worry too much about it.

He gave the man his own time to…get a grasp of the situation as he gave himself time because…the compound was really silent without Sam fretting around in it. Or Wanda, with her magic. Clint and Natasha, bickering and surprising everyone, sneaking around. Steve…

Steve had left him behind. Percy understood why Tony was like this. He'd been left to die, alone.

The situation was complicated, and Tony…he tried finding some comfort, perhaps Pepper had been one of the reasons he signed in the first place, and she turned him down. He must be feeling like crap. First his team of superheroes, and not even Pepper a woman he had loved like he had never loved another stood by him. They all left, starting with Steve, Sam, Wanda, Clint, and then Natasha. Now Pepper too.

Percy could only give him time. He didn't know about comfort, but, he gave him time.

He stayed at the compound for a couple of days, and while Tony was gone, he was gone too. Off in New York, in his own apartment, living the _normal_ life for a couple of days, before Vision alerted him that Tony was on his way back. Then he went back too, just to be there for him, if he was needed.

He wasn't, and Percy didn't push him.

He stayed silent —when around him— and kept to himself, focusing on training and working out. That also helped to get the life of one super soldier out of his mind. As well as how fucked up his own was.

When Tony finally decided to talk to him, they came together with Vision, and with one another decided on the weapons they'd need made in celestial bronze, so to be able to fight the monsters coming from Tartarus. Percy would have added an extra sword in there, but…either Riptide was returned to him, or the one he had would work just fine.

They had decided that Vision would not be going, it would be only them as they were both known and…frankly, Vision would bore the crap out of ADHD demigods. A room full of them would explode in his presence. So he didn't come and Percy was left alone on a ride in an Audi with Tony. A silent ride as Tony didn't speak to him, didn't even look at him once.

Instead rolled down the window and blasted some relaxing music on.

Percy could only go along with it.

And he did.

He felt _nostalgic_ as they drove down the road surrounded by hills on either side. He remembered every turn and when they got close enough, the smell of strawberries. At one point the sign for the farm. Then as they drove further in and in, Percy noted the car parks at the sides of the road. The amount of cars occupying it. It was like a punch in the gut, seeing how much it had grown, and not having been there to see it.

He didn't let it get to him.

Tony drove into one of the parkings and slowed down to a stop. Rolled the windows up and stopped the radio, then turned off the vehicle. He took of his expensive shades. "I know I haven't been all that communicative recently," he started. "But are you sure you want to go? I can go on my own or, we can come another time. No hard feelings on my part."

Percy had his elbow on the doorframe, he chuckled. "I'll have to go back _one day_. Why not make that day today?" He paused then smiled, sincerely. "I'm sure."

Tony unfastened his seatbelt and Percy followed suit. Tony's glasses were on again at that point. He was dressed like he would be to a formal board meeting. Suit and tie, smart pants and shiny shoes. Percy knew it wouldn't be needed so all he wore was black jeans, a tight black overtop and a black leather jacket. They'd both stick out like sour thumbs in the midst of demigods wearing orange and maybe purple.

He didn't mind.

No, he didn't mind at all showing he wasn't _them_ , not anymore.

He walked out of the care with confidence, as did Tony. Percy himself threw on a pair of shades and ran a hand through his hair. He looked at Tony over the hood of the car. The latter said. "You still have time to back out. Still no hard feelings. But if you piss your pants once we're at the top of that hill, I'll make you regret it. Understood."

"Don't worry about it," Percy reassured.

It was more to reassure himself than Tony because truth be told, the moment he had stepped out of the car he had felt weak. His stomach felt empty but…like a heavy stone had dropped in it unexpectedly and it was hard to walk. It was difficult and straining. He could smell the sea from here, and they were behind hills, he didn't want to think how much the smell was stronger once in the camp.

Except he knew, and not a century could make him forget how it had smelled like, how it had looked like, the atmosphere and all.

He took his first steps towards the path up the hill. A path he had forgotten they had created through the tall grass. A fine improvement, especially since it was also well decorated and aligned. Not exactly symmetric but satisfying for his eyes to look at. Only thing, it was a trail for one.

Tony took the lead, and Percy had to remind himself that Tony had been here before, without him, just a few weeks ago. He'd been here to try to prevent a _civil war_ from happening, and it had all been for nothing unfortunately.

As they climbed higher up the hill, each step became harder for Percy to take. The weight in his stomach getting heavier and heavier to the point his limbs trembled at taking another step. At one point, just before seeing the look beneath the hill. Just out of line of sight from the tall pine tree, he stopped. Tony noticed and stopped with him. He held his hand at his stomach, took a deep breath and then looked at Tony.

"Do you want me to carry you?" he asked sarcastically.

Percy smiled, then pushed through, gently shoving Tony out of the path and reaching the top.

For a moment his breath caught in his throat because, no matter how many times he had dreamed of this place, or thought about it, he _had_ forgotten how it looked like. He had known that the city —inspired by the Roman one— had undoubtedly grown to a greater size, but he had never thought that the camp in itself has changed so as well. It had grown as well.

The U shape for the cabins wasn't visible in the dozen and dozen of cabins there now stood in that clearing. Two arenas, not just one, and the amphitheater had been enlarged, almost double the size. There were other changes of course but this, those were the ones that caught his attention the quickest. He looked down the hill, searching for the Big House, and was actually _happy_ when he saw that there was nothing that had changed about that. Nothing at all. Still a two story with an attic.

Change was good, but when it wasn't noticed…he didn't like it as much.

He didn't look to see Tony, but he knew that the latter turned to look at him. Instead his eyes remained fixated to the Big House. Almost like compelled to it, he started walking down towards it.

It was halfway down that he kicked himself in the ass and told himself to be and act like a man. Remind himself these people had shunned him, and that he should walk in there with his chin high and pride of the person he had become. Of what he had achieved, _without_ them. Not feeling as though his legs were about to give. No, he'd walk in there with confidence and make them all see that he was stronger.

Not weaker and beaten.

No, that he had risen from his own ashes like a phoenix and become something more.

People stared. Whether it was directly at him or at Tony, he wasn't sure, and, he didn't care. _Let them stare_. Let them see that he doesn't care anymore. That he's not a child there for their forgiveness, that he's there because he wants to make things better. No, let them watch and see that they had made the gravest mistake of their life, and that _he_ was still standing.

Proud and tall.

They stopped to stare and internally, Percy grinned. Had he not steeled himself, he might have cringed, but he didn't. Instead he enjoyed their look of _awe_. The whispers that said, ' _It's Percy Jackson and Tony Stark_ ', ' _They're Avengers_ '. Yes indeed.

They'd agreed prior to even stepping into the car that they would go directly to the Big House, no detours. The Big House was where they were most likely to meet one of the people in charge. Perhaps Chiron although any of the older demigods would do just fine. Jason would be a good option, Annabeth would be better, others…he'd request for the son of Zeus or her if there were others.

He clenched his jaw tightly, his muscles no doubt feathering as he did the couple steps to the perch. The same perch he had walked to when he had met his first god, Dionysus. Playing a board game with the old centaur. Two men who had become his mentors over the years.

Then nothing.

He used his left hand to , his right arm was clenched tightly into a fist. Tight enough he could feel the leather of the glove bending and almost snapping under the pressure. The door opened with a creak and Percy stepped through, the floorboard creaking as well. At least some things didn't change. The initial floor board had creaked since the day he had first stepped through.

He walked through and Tony followed, closing the door softly behind him. Tony shook off his coat, leaving him dressed smart, yet he loosened down his tie as they walked over the wooden floor and—

Percy almost bumped into him. The tall son of Zeus, wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt under an open skiing jacket. Tall like he remembered, yet, Percy had grown where Jason had not. He still wore those ridiculous squared-lensed glasses on the bridge of his nose, and the little scar over his lip was still there, visible in the light of the corridor, flashing as he moved and light caught it.

It was clear Jason was surprised to see him. His mouth was open, words close to coming out but all that made its way out was air as he looked at Percy upside down, a second too long on the gloved hand, then moving behind him to where Tony stood, looking awkward.

Jason had grown a scruff, all tiny and spiky blonde hair.

Percy found himself drawn to that for some reason because this was not Jason. Jason had used to be all perfect and shining, not a hair out of place and now…there he was, growing a neatly trimmed beard. For some reason unknown to himself, he massaged his own jaw, feeling for the missing hair. He heard Tony snickering behind him and quickly stopped himself.

Glancing behind his shoulder to tell him to cut it.

He looked back at Jason, who seemed more composed than he had been moments before. "We're here to discuss—"

"Weapons," Tony finished for him, pushing Percy slightly so that he wasn't standing behind him anymore. Percy let him take his space. His spotlight. "Since you know, normal weapons don't kill your type of bad guys. We just want to make an inventory, so you can help us help you."

Jason's brows furrowed slightly, almost sarcastically because Tony's tone had been sarcastic, and nodded his head subtly. "Sure thing," he said. Percy noted how his voice was deeper but physically, he hadn't aged a day. "Come with."

He turned around, then led them further into the Big House, to a meeting room, told them to sit as he would go and take the people needed for what they were requesting.

"Get Annabeth as well," Percy told him as he was leaving. "Tell her I asked for her, and…thanks."

Jason stopped in the doorway, this time frowned seriously and then said, "No problem. I'll get Chiron first. Then call the others."

Percy nodded at him, making it clear it was as much as he was going to receive, then Jason was gone, closing the door softly behind him.

"Is it just me," Tony voiced out as he placed his jacket at the back of one of the chairs. "But that guy looks and acts like someone different every time I meet him. Sometimes he's like a teen and others he act like a man. A full grown up."

Percy looked around himself, at the chairs, the way they were arrayed around the new table, no longer a ping pong table. It was circular so that no one would feel superior from the others, and so that they all could see each other properly without having to strain their necks or lean on the table. A new improvement from the silly ping pong table where the fate of the world had been decided couple of times.

He walked over to the seat he could just _feel_ was that of Poseidon and sat down, then looked up at Tony. "You've gotten chatty," he said mockingly. "Drink too much coffee perhaps?"

Tony stood behind his chair. "Nah," he said, making some weird movement with his lips. "I'm just excited to see you interact with your old buddies. Is that classified as sadistic? Cuz' if it is then I take it back, although, it's fun seeing you uncomfortable."

"Real man, aren't you, Stark?" Percy said, his eyes on the door. He could feel the presence of a being, older than any of them put together approaching. He could hear hooves on wood. "I'm glad to know you've got my back," he added sarcastically.

Then a knock on the door, then slowly it opened and in came Chiron. As… Chiron the centaur. Judging by Tony's expression, he hadn't seen it this way before, which he figured, was scary as hell. One thing was being told the man was a horse from the waist down, another was seeing it in person and this close. Finally getting the idea stuck in this head that _this world existed_. A world of gods and myths.

Chiron's eyes found Percy's first and Percy told himself that they were allies. That they needed to act civilized and be _friendly_ to one another. Put the past behind them and start on a new road. One were past transgressions were still that, but one where they'd respect the other. Percy would respect the centaur, for the man he had been to Percy, the mentor and father figure, and he would respect him for what he was now, still a teacher of heroes. The father of all of them.

Nothing done could rip that sort of respect away.

"It is good to see you, Perseus," Chiron said, his old voice low and wise. "I'm glad to have you here."

Percy forced himself to smile, to put meaning behind it. Nodded his head. Then swallowed. "It's nice to see you as well, _sir_."

Again, _respect_.

Chiron smiled fondly then turned to Tony, approaching him, his hooves soft on the wooden board. His hand stretching to greet. "Welcome back Mr. Stark," he said to him. "I look forward to this meeting, and to see the wonders that together we'll be able to build."

Tony clasped Chiron's hand, shook it. "You dear," he started, his voice higher than usual. "Have a beautiful body."

Percy laughed, openly, not at all giving a damn about _anyone or anything_. It was just that. A joke, said so seriously and at such an inappropriate time that he couldn't keep it in. He just laughed.

Watched as Tony put his other hand around Chiron's hand, so he held his hand in between his two, and then added, "Got him to laugh didn't I?" Eyeing Percy to add emphasis. He let go of Chiron and turned back to standing behind the chair on which he'd placed his coat. "The atmosphere was so dense that… _damn_ , I had to do something about it. Right."

Percy bit his lip, just to keep in a remark that would break the newfound mood. Chiron walked at the head of the table, where Percy remembered him standing or sitting at every meeting they'd have. He removed his eyes from his mentor, shifting them to lay instead upon Tony, who was looking at Chiron before he looked at Percy. Raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Percy shrugged. His eyes rolling slightly. Tony gestured to Chiron with his head, placing his hands on the backrest of the chair he stood behind and leaning on it. Percy frowned slightly, confused as to what he was trying to say. Focusing like he didn't know he could to try to _read his mind_.

What the hell did he mean?

He frowned deeper, and Tony rolled his eyes. Then there were footsteps and Percy's head snapped to the door just as it started opening and a blonde head peeked through. Jason walked in, taking his blue skiing coat off his shoulders, remaining in a long sleeved Camp Half-Blood shirt. He took his seat where he should take his seat, the _Zeus Councillor_ chair. It was directly to the left seat from where he sat.

He caught the slight move of the wheels of the chair, inching to the left even more. Percy chuckled internally.

Then Leo appeared in the doorway, grease coated his clothes, and his skin. He, like Jason had not aged a day since Percy had last remembered him. He looked just like he had four years ago, and eighteen years ago. On that misfortunate day of the war against Gaea. Before he blew her to bits until the sky was gold. All that was different were his eyes, and of course they were, they aged, they showed how old he was, not his body.

It was only a matter of knowing where to look.

Before he could take his own seat, Annabeth stepped through and Percy saw her with a new light.

He reminded himself what he had told himself all those days before. Or was it weeks now. Whatever, he had promised himself that he would talk to her. Ask for what she had wanted to say when she'd gone to the tower. _Find_ a way to forgive her because he was finding that he was so damn lonely…he needed someone, and Annabeth…she wasn't just a choice, but…she was _his_ , had been since forever and he had lost her, he only wished to claim her again.

However difficult the path to that recovery, he was willing to take it and destroy every obstacle that lay in the way.

That day in the tower, all those weeks ago, he hadn't allowed himself to see her as beautiful. Or anything other than a traitor in reality, but now…now he allowed himself to look at her, and gape at the beautiful woman she had become. She too, looking like nothing more than a teenager, but more. She was looked older, she _was_ older. She like he, had spent fourteen years in hell, and it wasn't something erased by immortality.

She was her own beauty.

Her eyes, grey like the brewing storm clouds, locked onto his own and there was too much raw emotion in them because he knew she knew he had asked for her. How she managed to stay so quiet was all but a wonder. He'd been trained to _never make it personal_ , so his expression remained schooled into neutrality but her. _She was raw emotion set to life_ , and he loved it.

He loved every part he could see.

He hadn't allowed himself to look at her and even _like_ what he had seen. All he had thought, had allowed himself to think, was that she had turned her back on him, and left him when he was being banished. When he was being stripped of his honor and family. That she had left. Now, he looked at her like she was a house opening the doors for him to go in, a safe haven for him to go to. Now he allowed himself to like her, to think that millennia could pass and she would forever be the most beautiful woman on the planet.

She really was.

He slowly realized, as she came into full view in the room, that he was going to do whatever the hell it took, to get her back. He was going to forgive —never forget— but he was going to forgive and build something new. Of course, only if that was her wish as well.

If it wasn't…he was going to give his own words of apology for the way he had treated her that day in the tower and never bother her again. He was going to tuck her and what they'd shared, into a private part of his heart, of his soul, and look at it when times got darkest. He would do that to remind himself that there had been good times in the past, and that it was for those times that he fought. That he raised his sword again and again. That he killed.

His eyes were set trained on her as she along with Leo moved towards Tony, shaking hands. First went Leo, excited, saying, "Mr. Stark, it is an honor, to see you again." They shook hands. Extravagantly.

His eyes didn't leave her face. She on the other hand…it was like she forced herself to look away from him. Her eyes had gone glossy. She reached Tony as well and, like Leo, shook his hand, more stiffly. "Stark."

Tony's own hand was stiff in hers. He was looking at her and Percy. Percy who hadn't even stood to greet them. Tony rolled his eyes at the both of them once their hands had parted ways and Leo had taken his seat at the Hephaestus seat, and Annabeth at the Athena seat. He looked at Jason, Leo and then at Chiron. "This is tense."

Then Tony's eyes landed on Percy's and Percy glared softly. It wasn't anything serious, he wasn't actually mad, it was just…inappropriate timing. He knew Annabeth's eyes had gone back to him, and he knew there should have been something he said to her, to greet her, tell her he needed to talk to her but he didn't say any of that. Partly because that would raise looks and questions so instead he looked at Tony, and with a solution to the tension he said, "Then let's start."

.

 **And yes, I leave it here bcs yes. It was getting long. And...when I first wrote this, I didn't know how to continue it.**

 **BTW, IMPORTANT, please go back and read Chapter 5, because his meet with her is different and less full of cringe. Also, the next chapter -and this one- might be confusing or OOC from what you might have read before. I recommend to go back to read it.**

 **Also, the next chapter is something you've all been asking for since chapter 5. So look out for it.**

 **-.-**

 **ON another note, can I just mention how annoyed I am that my school ends on the 10th of July, while there are people right now on holiday. Like why must we suffer for an extra month, while everyone else is done? Why?**

 **-.-**

 **Bye**


	25. He'll Be Back

**HI. long time no see. This chapter is...weird I think. I don't know, maybe hypocritical, out of character, _Both_. I DON'T Know. What I do know is that I put a lot of effort into it, so please don't bash it. **

**Also long wait because of holidays, I went places and there wasn't really time to post it and yeah, just...enjoy please.**

 **.**

 **X-X-"Et Revertar"-X-X**

( _"_ _He'll be back"_ )

Percy didn't listen. He tuned out. Well not entirely, he was there enough that he had a basic understanding of how the conversation went, but mostly he just really wanted what would happen next. He needed the 'to go' so he could take his leave, meet up with her, talk to her, and just…try to fix something that was broken in so many pieces. He didn't exactly _want_ to, there was still a side of him that didn't think it would be right, but there was another part of him that needed to.

He didn't know where to start.

He heard them talking, at first not even about the weapons they'd actually need. Just…talking. Annabeth kindly inquiring about a possibility Tony work on the weapons as well. Help Leo out with the designs. Add technology to what was already perfect craftsmanship. It would allow for them to have the upper hand on arms. On firepower and whatnot. It could as well win them the war.

Then it turned into Tony, asking to have scraps of the metal so precious to them, so that he may study it, evaluate it, bring it home and tinker with it. Percy spoke up when he said that, reminding him, "Last time you tinkered with something that wasn't human, you created Ultron. Would it be wise?"

Tony then responded by saying, "That was a combined effort, as I recall. Both Bruce _and_ I created the superbot. And we took him down— Whatever, hey, you should be on my side. Plus I'm pretty sure that Celestial Bronze does not contain an infinity stone somehow within it."

Percy shrugged his shoulder. "Okay," he said, a sigh on his lips. "But it's on you."

Tony had waved him off. Then returned to his conversation with the three demigods and centaur. Percy on the other hand, focused on her. He somehow needed to tell her he needed to talk to her, but outright would raise questions and he wasn't ready for Jason or Leo to start talking to him as if they were buds again. Nor Chiron. So he sought out other ways to do so.

He crossed his arms and stared at her. Not a glare, or something soft. Just, stared. His eyes were void of anything as they set on her, her face, her eyes. It didn't take long for her to notice, to _feel_ the stare he was so obviously sending off to her. Their eyes met, for a moment because he chickened out. He looked away the moment she has looked at him. He felt her stare on him last a little longer, but then it returned to the person that was talking. Tony.

"…it's tricky," he was saying. "They're outlaws, we aren't. It was their choice. I'm not going to fix it for them. So, I can't say whether it's going to be all of us, or just the four of us. But we need to start working on weapons. Your bad guy could attack any time…"

Again he tuned the conversation out. His eyes setting just to the right of her head, because, thoughts were pulling him in and he didn't want to be noted staring at her when he didn't realize. He thought over what Tony was saying. He'd talked it over with him again, the whole 'I won't be the one calling because I don't need him' thing. Because perhaps Tony didn't need him —or simply didn't think he did— but Percy and the rest of the world sure as hell did and if all it had taken was _that_ to break them apart…he wondered whether they had been a family before at all.

Or just…everyone's life was so fucked up that lying to theirselves was better than face reality on their own. Because reality had become harsh in the past couple of years. For him it had always been harsh, but for the Avengers in general…they kept making mistakes after mistakes and perhaps the Accords were right. They needed to be put in check, perhaps Tony was right.

He was pulled back into reality as Tony lightly kicked him under the table. Percy jerked slightly, his knee hitting under table and his arms infolding. He glared at Tony. "What?" he asked.

"Any type of weapon you like, darling?" Tony asked him, pulling Vision's English accent on the last word. "The demigods are waiting."

"No," he said bluntly. "Uh, no," he repeated more calmly. "I…unless —Riptide, then no."

Tony raised an eyebrow at his response, but let it pass. Started talking with them about schedules and whatnot. Days Leo could visit the compound and start making blueprints for guns, grenades, swords, daggers, that type of thing. Leo's eyes lit up at the idea of him visiting the compound. Tony went on to explain to them that they were all 'Welcome' to come to the compound anytime they liked. As long as they didn't cause a commotion, break something, or disrupt daily routines. _Rooms had emptied_ , as he put it.

No one laughed at the attempt of a joke, instead, Percy shot him a glare that had him recovering his words and phrasing it differently. They kept on talking about that sort of thing, and Percy went back to trying to get her attention, so that this time he may keep it and pass along the message he needed to pass along, that he seriously needed to talk to her. About _everything_.

When she noticed his stare, and she turned this time Percy didn't flinch away. He kept the contact. He saw her eyes —her irises— clouding over, raw emotions swirling in her grey orbs. He showed he felt no difference. He slowly — _in fact so slow that it might have as well been invisible to the others_ — raised his eyebrow. The question was there, she only needed to reply.

A small sad smile. A nod of the head. His eyebrow went back down, and he looked away from her. His expression turning back to blank. Now all he had to hope for was that no one had paid attention to him, or her. He tuned back into the conversation, hearing Leo.

"I can come by in next week," he was saying. "Start laying down some blueprints, ideas of how they could look like. Then start working on prototypes."

Jason looked between the two of them. "Do we even have time to build _prototypes_? Tartarus could attack at any time."

"We'll be ready," Percy said confidently.

When they looked at him, it was just a blank expression. One he wasn't overly fond of. Better than pity.

Tony placed his hands on the table, making noise and breaking the tension that had risen after he's spoken. He stood up, helping himself up. "So, we're done?" he asked all around. He started buttoning up the buttons of the suit as he looked at Leo. "How about then, you show me this workshop you've been bragging about, Fireboy." He turned around to look at Percy. "Where'll you be?"

He eyed Tony, not bothering to fully raise his head. "Around," he said, glancing at Chiron to see if he'd deny it. Then at Annabeth, to imply she stay close behind so they could talk. He turned his head to Tony. "Meet you at the car when you're done…?"

Tony looked between Annabeth and him, his hand finding a spot on his shoulder. Jason and Leo stood, started a small conversation as they started leaving. "Be careful to use protection," he whispered.

Percy stared at him incredulously. Then got out of there as quickly as his feet brought him without starting in a jog. Cutting in front of the leaving Leo and Jason. Annabeth was still sitting down when he left. Tony standing with a smirk on his face.

-.-

He got out of the Big House, and then…he was in Camp Half-Blood and it crashed down in him that _he was in fact there_. He was— no, not home. This was not his home anymore, but there was something in him that made it feel like it was. He stood at the top of the porch of the Big House, looking around himself and _nothing had changed_. Except it had grown.

He pulled his hoodie up, not so that he wouldn't be seen, but rather, those that saw him and recognized him understood he didn't want to talk. That he wasn't ready to talk to them, and mostly, _just leave me alone_. He walked around the camp, noting the new building that had sprung up in the past four years. At one point, he found himself in front of his old cabin.

It was weird for sure.

He stepped up the three steps and, he knocked on the door. He didn't know whether someone else had been claimed, whether he had a younger brother Poseidon had forgot to mention. He doubted it and no one answered his knock, so he pushed through and opened up the door.

The moment he saw the insides, his stomach caved in. He felt a weird sensation in himself because _none of it had changed_. No, the cabin was exactly like he had left it. No one had come to clean it up, get the sheets off the beds he and his brother once occupied, no one came to empty the drawers from their clothes, or the desks and walls from their belongings. No, everything was just like he had left it that night four years ago.

He was confused.

The fountain was broken though, there was no water running and no water beneath the cabin either. It was like the whole cabin was broken except there was surely magic at work. There were no ingrown plants, and the place wasn't invested by spiderwebs or some other bugs. It was as clean as he had left it, almost like it had frozen in time. Which he figured, he didn't fully mind at all.

The scent of Seabreeze was still strong.

He walked over to one of the desk. _His_ desk. He looked at the contents upon it. Notepads upon notepads and loose papers. He picked up one of them reading the first line, ' _January 5th, 2012. Today I woke up screaming, I soon realized that was because Annabeth had woken up early. It remains true that I cannot sleep peacefully without her. It's not as bad as before, but her presence helps—_ ' He stopped himself before he'd read something he had no intention of remembering.

He remembered those first few months after they got back. They were horrible and true enough, he couldn't sleep without her, and she him. It was like they were medicine for each other. That one couldn't function without the other. It had gotten better, but that hadn't meant that it was easy when he had been cut off from her so suddenly. The nights following, he'd been too busy trying to stay ahead of the hunters that he forgot all about needing her to sleep peacefully.

There was a knock on the door that brought him back to reality. Again, today he seemed to be spending more time in his own head, with his own thoughts, than acknowledging what was going on around him. It was probably because he was back in the camp after so long. He blamed it on that.

He looked at the door, at who was stepping inside and his breath caught in his throat for a moment. She had been right behind him, like he had suspected, like he had hoped. He watched her walk in, pull the door close behind her, leaving it slightly ajar. Then she leaned on the wall with her back, crossed her arms on her chest and he watched her like the fool he was.

Before he reined himself in. "I'm sorry," he told her, surprising her no doubt and before she could speak he held up his hand and continued. Elaborated. "For not listening to you. I—I was a dick. And I'm sorry for that. And I'm willing to—I mean…you want to. I can—you can— you should— _Please tell me why you left_?" He ended up saying, almost begging her, and his vision was blurred.

He blinked a couple of times, fixing it. Then looked at her. She was smiling sadly. "Come with me," she told him and she didn't wait before opening the door and walking out.

He contemplated for about two seconds, before getting on his feet and hurrying out after her, not even bothering to close the door behind him. The door could wait, plus it wasn't like there was anything of value to him in there, except those papers…He hesitated before running back to properly close it, before reaching her again, walking next to her.

It was silent, and it was awkward. She walked with her head pointed straight and she didn't glance at him, not once, not even through the corner of her eyes, she just _walked_ forward. He on the other hand had a tougher time to not look at her, just to check if she was looking. Getting slightly disappointed every time she wasn't. So at one point he stopped checking, and just went on.

They passed the archway that introduced them to the city, New Athens, much like New Rome, more than half of which was designed by Annabeth. They walked through the city, the citizens waving a hello to the demigoddess beside him, and looking skeptically at him. Until they stopped in front of a house, designed in a Greek style. A fence which Annabeth opened and then walked him through before closing it.

She stopped them on the porch. "I want you to understand, that, if you start raising your voice, I won't hesitate to kick you out."

"This is your house?" he asked her, confused yet not surprised. No, he could say he wasn't surprised, but proud instead. Nothing worse for the likes of her. She had probably designed every inch of it.

Annabeth smiled. "Yes," she told him. "You don't sound surprised."

"Should I be?"

"No."

She then turned to the door, and rang the bell. Why she had to do that when it was her house…he wasn't sure but he wasn't _ready_ , mentally nor physically when the door opened to a young woman, a teenager really. Percy immediately sought out her heritage, found her to be a daughter of two demigods which made her grand daughter of both Elis and Aphrodite. A second generation demigod. She was something else.

Her eyes got scared upon seeing him, then smoothened out when she looked at Annabeth who said, "Thank you Renata, for looking after him." She just nudged her head in his direction and the teen demigod nodded her head, blushing.

"Of course, let me just get my bag," she said. "I put him to sleep, he's in his bed."

Annabeth was smiling very sweetly to her but Percy could see her, the panic that was building up in her. He had the feeling that this would either go very wrong, or very good, it seemed it would depend on him. On his reaction, perhaps on who this _male_ was. A lover, a friend? Percy was skeptical and confused and…there was some sort of _jealousy_ building under his skin. Even though he had no right for that.

He didn't get to be jealous, not when she had tried and he had sent her away the way he had.

Annabeth invited him in, and then as she led him up the flight of stairs that separate the vast living room with the kitchen, Renata left, leaving behind the echo of a door shutting. He followed her down the corridor, various doors on either side, for bedrooms he had no doubt. They stopped in front of one and Percy's heart sped up. Was this it? Her excuse, her reason.

He didn't know, and honestly he didn't care what it was. He just…being so close to her…it was taking all his self control to not just tackle her to a wall and do something. Touch her, kiss her, the list went on. He would do it, if she would allow it. He would because he _needed_ her. As much as the diary entry had said and that was four years ago. Nothing had changed. Absolutely nothing.

He noted her hand shaking as she knocked softly on the wooden door. "Charlie? Darling are you awake?" she asked, her voice shaking slightly. Percy looked at her questioningly. She looked uncomfortable, like she was close to puke, or simply start bawling. She looked sick to the core, she looked _bad_.

He grabbed her hand, a spar of electricity running through him at the touch. Her hand had been going for the doorknob. "Hey," he said smoothly and softly. "Is everything okay? You don't have to tell me anything, Wise Girl. I—" He stumbled on his words a little. He'd just called her _Wise Girl_. "Look I was upset. I won't lie about that but…when I was in my father's—uh… _palace_ , I thought about it, over and over again. About what happened, about you. And truth is… _I missed you_."

She had tears in her eyes, and he wasn't managing much better himself. Yet he couldn't stop talking, he needed to get some things out of his mind. He needed to tell. "I missed you," he repeated, more loudly, clearly. "Because you were everything I had and then you were gone. And, I acted like a complete ass when you came to me two months ago, but…I wasn't ready. I'd put us behind and you brought it back and…I didn't know then but now I'm sure…I want it back. And I know that's totally unfair on you, but I _just needed to tell you_. Because I truly dearly _missed you—_ "

The air in his lungs was pushed out of them. She had crushed him, her arms had reached and wrapped around his neck and they forced him down, so she got a tighter hold, her brow resting tightly and heavily on the crook of his neck. He placed one of his hands —the cybernetic one— on one of her arms, confused because there she was, hugging him. And…he wasn't breathing, he was as still as he had never been and his head was in a mess and he was hot and he didn't understand.

Then his arms wrapped around her slender figure, tightly enough that he could feel her ribs on his. He could feel himself on her, and he closed his eyes, placing his chin on her shoulder because _he needed_ this. He had been needing this since the moment he had witnessed his brother killing himself because of Tartarus. He had needed this when he went back to his mother's apartment and saw them both dead, on the floor, stabbed through the gut. When he had lived on the streets for five months, just barely managing to stay off drugs because they were the most appalling thing then.

He had needed this when he had first ran upon the three Avengers, and they had given him a new home, a job, a new family. Nothing was missing but _this_. And he hadn't known until now, because he had been blinded with hate and anger and that had clouded his thoughts, his _needs_. It had clouded his judgment and when she had shown up at the compound two months prior, he was still unaware that he had _needed_ her, that the key to his wellbeing was locked in her.

That he couldn't hope to function properly without her, that hell with her was better than heaven without her.

He was an idiot.

She was shaking, she was _sobbing_. His shoulder felt wet, even through the thick fabric of his jacket and jumper. He felt the wetness she was leaving on him, because she was crying so much and he couldn't stand it. He didn't want her to be crying, much less because of him. He wanted her to smile, and laugh and be _happy_. Not this mess she was in right now. He felt guilty really quickly. His hand moving up and down her back, comforting, then tracing circles softly, trying his best.

The door behind them opened, and Percy didn't see it because her head was in the way, but he heard the small voice calling out, "Mama, what's wrong?" And froze in his actions. He had to _think_ , to acknowledge what it was he'd just heard.

He pulled away from Annabeth and regretted it quickly, but there was a child there, and…perhaps he _did_ want to know what it was she had been about to tell him. Perhaps it would be good to know but…something heavy settled in his stomach when he noted how young the child was. Had she…hooked up? Had a child? Was she married? Was he intruding on her life? Something she had built with someone else?

Annabeth crouched down to her knees, so she was more level with the child. Blonde curly hair, swept to the side like he had just taken a walk on the beach and the wind has pushed them sideways, but it was his eyes which intrigued him. They were green, but not like his own green, they were green and almost grey, like Annabeth's. They were her shape too, but that was about it. Nothing else from the child was Annabeth.

The child spoke again, "Mama, who is the man?"

Annabeth placed her hands beneath the child's armpits and then pulled him up, standing back up and holding him in her arms. She turned him to Percy, wiping at her face as she did so. "Charlie, this is Percy Jackson, Percy, this is Charlie."

Percy frowned. Then the boy turned to his mother and whispered —more like asked at voice level, "Is that Papa?"

His eyes were short of fully wide when he heard the sweet and small words. He looked at Annabeth, questions written on his face because what was the child talking about. Annabeth hadn't been pregnant when he'd been exiled. They barely made love to one another, it was crazy to think that they'd have had a child and all his thoughts were clearly displayed in his features.

Annabeth said, "Feel him, Percy. The powers within him. It's the only way I can prove it to you."

So he tried. He looked at the child's eyes. Noting the streaks that were so green they resembled the sea's water. The grey streaks that resembled thunder clouds. He looked into him and _felt_ him. Sending his own presence, his power out and feeling him. Feeling the child. Feeling a connection, feeling the sea within him. Feeling a bond between them. He took a step closer and got a good image of how deep the well went, of how much there was in the child of him.

He raised his eyes to meet Annabeth's. "How is this possible?" he asked her confused.

She smiled sadly at him. Then she placed Charlie back down to his feet, who swayed, still half asleep. "Baby, why don't you go back to bed," she offered him. "We can talk about this tomorrow, okay?"

The child nodded, and then walked back into his room. His _blue_ room. Closing the door softly behind him. He looked after him, because, he was a _father_? He looked at Annabeth and so she walked a few paces away from him, away from the door because the child would be trying to sleep.

"I was pregnant," she told him. "I knew just the day of that night, thought to tell you in a better way than simply putting out there." She shook her head. "I wasn't even sure you'd be happy, whether you'd be upset, so I wanted to wait to tell you. But I never got the chance did I? And when they said they were going to kill you… _I felt sick, I couldn't stand to stand there and watch_." She wiped at her nose. "I _saw_ you tumbling down the building and I thought you were dead, and I vomited in the taxi I was in."

There were tears running down her cheeks again. "I searched for you," she told him, standing trembling. "I searched day and night and when I saw a connection with _The Swordsman_ and you, I just had to try."

"I'm sorry for that day," he said slowly. "And what happened after." He pulled her into a hug, grabbing her arms and wrapping them around himself. She clutched the fabric of his jacket in fists.

"I missed you, too," she whispered and that was it for him.

He wasn't sure what to think, about the situation, about the child. He'd have more time for that another time, but for now… all he knew is that he couldn't wait anymore.

No more waiting.

He pulled her away slightly, looking at her, raising her chin so that she was looking at him. Their eyes locked with one another. He slowly inclined his head downwards, and when she closed her eyes, waiting for it, as he slowly came to her, he closed his own as well. Then he placed his lips onto hers and his insides melted off from what they were before. His hands found their way to the sides of her face and he was holding her tightly in between.

Her hands found their way to his neck, and to his hair, interning itself in there, clutching at the locks hard. Not too hard. He found it pleasing. He pushed them against the wall, and then, pulled her up so that he was holding her, and she sat on his arms, each other into one another so much it didn't register fully that they were sharing this. It just happened.

At one point she slid away from his hold, and guided them, although trippingly, to her bedroom. Everything else was history.

-.-

They ended up lying face down on the mattress, stripped of its covers because…it had been rough at the end. The blankets lay forgotten on the floor and they would remain there until either of them got cold but…for now their bodies were coated in sweat and they were pressed tightly against one another. His arms wrapped around her body and their legs intertwined with one and the other. His head snuggled in the crook of her neck as they both lay there breathing unevenly.

He was happy.

He hadn't been for a very long time but now…he could say he was content, happy. He didn't know how the situation could be made better. He didn't want to think about what it was missing. Nothing for now.

Her fingers were tracing his arm, looking as real as synthetic as his left. It was a soft touch, yet with the newly improved version of the prosthetic, he was able to feel it, even though it was barely a hair's breath away. The soft touch had his hair on his bicep standing straighter than the rest of his body, just because it was so…soft and gentle and he could feel it be so. Even now, almost two weeks after he had been given it, it amazed him at how real it was. Two more days and he'd need to tell Poseidon that, yes, he wanted to keep it.

Her voice was a soft whisper, gentle and caressing when she spoke. "Did it hurt?"

He shook his head minutely, as to not disrupt their position. "No, my father had me put under for the procedure," he told her honestly. "I wouldn't have done it otherwise."

"It feels real," she said to him, her voice small. "It feels like the other, only a bit fake—"

A phone started ringing. He raised his head, trying to acknowledge whether it was his own or maybe hers. When she didn't move from her position, he figured it was his and he started scanning the room. He had left it in his pant's pocket, and they had gone off towards the end. So they must be close to the bed. Knowing —or well, guessing— who it was, Percy was quick to get out of bed and onto his feet. Searching for his pants. He was never going to hear the end of it if Tony thought they were having sex.

He walked to the base of the bed, picked up his jeans and searched his pockets. The phone kept on ringing. Once he found it he was quick to answer the call, the caller ID showing the name ' _Genius_ '. Pulling it up to his ear to hear his endearing voice.

"Where you at, aquaman?" Tony asked, his words chirpy. "Oh wait, don't answer that. Just know I won't pick you up tomorrow. I'll be busy finding something to be busy with."

"Tony—" he tried, just so maybe he'd get the chance to explain to tell him that he was planning to stay the night, perhaps the next day as well. After all Tony had left him for Pepper the previous week. It was only right he spent his own time with the woman he cared most about.

But Tony cut him off quickly and effectively. "Look, all I care about is that you use protection," he jokes on the other side of the line. "Wouldn't want a little Percy Jackson running around this camp. Not any time soon. Call me when you're done. FRIDAY will fix up a taxi to bring you back to the compound."

"Tony, sometimes I wonder where you get this from…" he muttered through the phone. "But, okay I'll call you when I'm done. In the meantime, it'd be nice if you also thought about calling—"

Tony again, cut him off. "Tell hi to blondie for me," he said. "Or is it bye, since I'm leaving?…Whatever just tell her I said hi."

"I'll see you Tony," Percy told him, as way of closing the call, and after Tony replied with a goodbye. He ended the call right there. Placing his phone back in his pocket and then dropping the jeans on the floor.

When he turned around, he saw Annabeth looking at him, her head supported by her hand. She was scanning him over, from bottom to top and over again. He felt heat bloom in his cheeks at the realization that he was very naked, and perhaps that also had effect on his parts down there, to which she let out a laugh. He cocked his head to the side. Then he was on the bed, crawling towards her like a predator, and she turned, stomach up. Grabbed his neck and pulled him down to her, where their lips met and well…stuff happened.

.

 **A lot of you were asking for the first part of this chapter, not the second, but...rest assured, Annabeth is _not_ off the hook. BY a looooong shot. Which is why the title is a *hint*.**

 **Thank you for everyone who reviewed on the previous chapter, and to all new followers, I wouldn't be continuing this if it weren't for you people so yes, thank you.**

 **Enjoy your holidays.**

 **Hunter**


	26. The Deal

**Hey there...**

 **So school's started, which is not so great. Great thing is that I'm actually very ahead with this fic, so this won't be a problem. I've not only got the next couple of chapters written out, I've actually gotten the whole story planned out and it's going steady in that direction. Which is great.**

 **What isn't great, is that school has indeed started...**

 **Well anyways, enjoy:**

 **.**

 **X-X-Paciscor-X-X**

( _The Deal_ )

-.-.-

30th January

-.-.-

The next day he woke up before she did. He grabbed his clothes from the floor, put them back on, and then he left without waking her up.

He had to think about what they'd shared before looking her in the eye again.

-.-

A spur of the moment…that's what he was going to call it.

 _A spur of the moment_.

That's all it had been. He had wanted to talk to her, and then his masculine needs had gotten the better of him. That's what he was going to say to explain it to Tony, to which he hoped the older man would simply laugh at and wave it off. He wasn't, under no circumstance going to tell him that he had needed it since the day she infiltrated the compound. That she had gotten _that_ much under his skin.

The nightmares following…Yeah he had needed her, sure. He wasn't going to deny that.

But he also wasn't going to forget the disgust he had felt when he had woken up that morning. How his head ached. He'd been happy too, gods above had he been happy…But there had been a part of him that had been disgusted, and he had quickly figured out why when he turned and saw her.

There she was, peaceful in her sleep, and smiling. One arm had been draped around his middle, almost like she didn't want him to leave. He couldn't find the strength to smile, or to frown. He just looked at her, his brows furrowing with sadness at the confused thoughts and feelings he had clashing.

 _This wasn't right_ , he told himself even though he had spent the entirety of the night telling himself that it was. He had _needed_ it, that was for sure. He now felt like the weight of the sky had been lifted from his shoulders. That need had in fact told him it was right. It wasn't.

He had spent years, after that unfaithful day four years ago, trying to build himself back up after _she_ had betrayed him so utterly and fully. After she had fucked him up in the head so badly that he couldn't allow himself to look at another woman and think in any way beyond a friendship. That he could look at Natasha and not find anything about her appealing.

That all that had remained in that scarred head of his was to survive, not live, survive.

 _She_ had been cause of that. They all had, but she had been it more.

Poseidon had been right there in that classification, right next to her. He understood his motive, he didn't forgive him for it, he was surely never going to forget it, but he understood. Her…

A child.

God the time it would take for him to wrap his mind around _that_. He had a _child_. A _child_. Whom he had no idea existed until the day before. Of course he might have known sooner, had he let her explain back on that day at the tower, or perhaps would have been able to raise him, had none of this happened.

He would have been accepting then, like he is right now…but it was going to take time for him to _understand_ it. To come to terms with it, to act like a father, and care for the child as his blood. Although he had a suspicion that would the child be in peril, he was ready to put his life right on the line for him. Children had that effect on him.

When he caught the taxi —having already walked some of the way— he came to terms that he had screwed up this time, and he had done so big time. He had started something he wasn't sure he could make himself follow through.

Being with Annabeth made him feel alive like he hadn't been for decades. Without her it made him feel like life wasn't worth living. But waking up next to her, made him disgusted with his own actions, it made him question his own sanity because what kind of man slept with the person that had ruined him so badly in so many damn ways. But waking up alone made him feel alone and weak.

There was no way in between.

He hated it.

But there were no other thoughts in his mind on the ride back to the compound.

-.-

When he got back to the compound, he went to his rooms, and crashes on the bed, after all he hadn't slept all that much the night before. In all honesty, he was spent, and he knew that if he had the time, he would sleep for days to no end before his energies all returned to him.

He didn't sleep well.

-.-

 _It was dark around him, a tint of red clouded his eyes. It was almost like he was wearing night vision goggles, and the image, instead of being green, it was red. The air was toxic, enough so that his throat hurt, his lungs felt constricted and his eyes stung. His skin felt like it was heating up, almost like a flame was being held close to it on every single inch of it._

 _He knew where he was,_ Tartarus _._

 _A tremor ran through him, just at the thought. Last time his dreams had been impactful and it had brought him to Tartarus, he had seen Annabeth's decaying corpse, which had resulted in him feeling weaker than he had in years. If this was anything of the same caliber, he sure as hell wasn't ready for it. He was never ready for anything that came with Tartarus._

 _He would never be._

 _Then the red dissipated, and —his heart beat stopped for a second there— he was sure this was fake yet—_

 _There was a tube. He forgot all about Tartarus, instead focused on the tube, this singular tube in the middle of this darkness. It was white on the outside, almost like ice had frosted over it. He took a couple of steps towards it, then…then he thought whether looking into that tube was worth the mental scarring it was going to give him._

Wake up, wake up, wake up, _he told himself. Said it out loud, yelled it out into the darkness around him. Nothing changed. Nothing happened. The crystal white tube remained in the middle of the darkness, mere steps away from him. Standing there upright, and it was almost like it was compelling him to come closer and take a damn look._

 _He opted into saying to hell with his own mind. Whatever this was, he was getting the idea it wasn't going to end until whatever this was, ended._

 _So he stepped up, and walked over to the tube. Until he was there, and if he focused enough he could see what was beneath the crystal like ice that coated the glass of the tube. He squinted his eyes, so he could see through the ice. He saw them then, the rugged dark hair that fell around his face, tucked behind his ears. The handsome features, closed and relaxed, yet pained and in stress. The white shirt that didn't fit what the man was. What he had done. What his hands had carried out for the purpose of others._

 _James Barnes slept peacefully in his cryo-tank._

'They'll come for him' _, he then heard in a voice he remembered._

 _Steve. He turned around, searching for a body to attach to the voice in the red darkness. He found none, so he turned back, to look at Barnes. What met his eyes made him jump, gasp, emit a sound of surprise._

 _The peaceful expression was replaced by that of pure confusion, and then shock. One someone might wear on the verge of death. There was blood, all over him, but there was no clear wound. His hair was longer than what it had looked like mere seconds before, a beard had grown fully around his face. The straps that had held him into place were gone, and where there hadn't been a left arm, was a black cybernetic limb._

'Steve?'

 _He had never heard the voice of the man in real life, only on recording, and that had always been a distorted version of it. But when he heard the name being spoke out loud, in such shock and confusion, he had no doubt that it appertained to the one and only Barnes._

 _An image of two men hugging flashed in his mind —before his eyes, since he was already in his mind— and when that was over, the tube was gone, along with Barnes. Leaving Percy alone in the darkness, until he turned around and saw the scarecrow._

 _His heart beat was erratic._

 _What had_ that _been about? What was_ this _about?_

 _He was scared, cautious to walk towards the scarecrow. But he did nonetheless because he wasn't waking up, and he knew that he needed to follow through with it if he wanted to. He needed to get it over with. So he walked over to the scarecrow, and had another jump scare when the face contorted and there was Sam, he too, covered in blood from head to toe._

 _Another scarecrow appeared next to Sam, this one was a man he had only heard about, dark skin and wearing a tight black vibranium costume. T'Challa hung there covered in blood. Then another one popped up, and there was a girl, a woman he had never seen before, antlers sticking out of her head. Then a grey man with red tattoos, followed by…_ Wanda _, she too hung there, blood covering her. Another man, and then…a kid was there too. A kid he remembered seeing somewhere on Tony's screens. Wasn't he the spider-ling, the one he had recruited…the suit he wore certainly pointed him in that direction._

 _Then Maria Hill was hanging there as well, Nick Fury. Annabeth, Piper, Hazel, Calypso, his sister, his_ son. _Other people kept popping up, they made a circle around him, and then rows behind the front lines. Rows and rows and rows. It was unending. The blood pooled at the base of their trunk, and it reached for him. It reached for him and he tried getting away but he was surrounded._

 _There was Tony then, kneeling in that pool of blood, right in front of him. He was holding himself tight, almost like he was consoling himself. He seemed all alone, he tried taking a step towards him, but it was like he hadn't moved. Tony was half covered by blood, there was a gaping hole in his stomach._

'It was the only way' _, an unfamiliar voice said that._

Wake up, wake up, wake up, _he started yelling in his head as the blood on Tony's rose and rose—_

"Sir, you told me to wake you after fours hours," the voice of the AI, FRIDAY, rung through his brain, rattling it. "Four hours have passed."

He could hear himself breathing…that wasn't a good sign. He could feel the trickles of sweat sliding down the sides of his face. It was all over him, yet he was wearing a thin cloth t-shirt, but long sweatpants. He opened his eyes, felt around him. He was on the floor, and the blanket was wrapped in a knot around his sweating body.

He had fallen off his bead, and yet not waken up, even though he could now feel the ache in his head.

God this was not a good day was it.

First Annabeth and his realization that he couldn't be with her without feeling the way he had felt the whole morning, now this dream which…the more he thought about it, the more it terrorized him to think that it could one day happen. That it _might_ happen, if Tartarus was as strong as he had once claimed to be. If he had that much raw and military power.

He stood up from the floor, blood rushed to his head and he felt dizzy, swayed a little on his feet. Stretched out his arms at his sides to balance himself out. Then took a step forward, to stabilize himself, and then another. He walked over to his bathroom. He really needed to wash his face. Cool up from this terrible nightmare he'd just had.

He walked in and turned the lights on, somehow it was blinding, and he groggily walked over to the sink. Opened the faucet. Let the water run. He tried feeling it, the running liquid. Found he couldn't. He frowned, but thought nothing much of it. He was probably too tired and worn out to feel the water running. It'll come back to him, he was sure of it.

He bent over the sink, placed his cupped hands beneath the running water and waited for it to fill. Then brought them to his face and splashed it with the cool liquid. He felt much more refreshed already. He did it once more, then another.

When he opened his eyes, his breath was knocked out of him as his eyes set on the mirror, and at _who_ was standing behind him. His throat went dry, and the water faucet exploded… _he did have control over it_. His eyes were wide, his hear beat frantic.

Because there he stood, in his smaller form, but yet he was taller than the Hulk. His flesh glistening purple, rippled with muscle. His fingers tipped with razor-sharp black talons. His boots were of stygian iron, his breastplate had faces of gorgons, monsters, cyclopes and dragons which were all pressing against the armor, almost like they were trying to escape. Everything in the room seemed to be drawn to him.

He wasn't like the Titans, or the Giants, no he was much more worse. His presence alone made Percy want to crawl away and hide. His voice sounded like it was being drawn back inward rather than projecting outwards. His face…there was a helmet on, there always had been, and beneath that…where he could see behind the slit holes of the helmet, a swirling whirlpool and inward spiral of darkness.

God he was about ready to pee in his pants.

He had no voice. He wanted to tell himself, _this wasn't happening_ , but he couldn't. He wanted to yell at FRIDAY to tell her to tell anyone on the facility to leave, to run away as far away as possible, but he couldn't. He didn't have the goddamned strength to be in his presence and stand up for himself. He couldn't even manage to look away from the horrible face that was Tartarus.

His swallows stung his dry throat, but he had to. It was the only thing making him aware that he was still alive, that he was still living. Otherwise he might believe that he was dead, and this was a contorted version of hell, where he was facing one of his greatest fears.

For five years, it had haunted him. For five years he had been expecting the moment this abomination came back into his life. That he came back, and claimed his life, since he should have five years before. And if not five years before, then twenty, the first time he had been in hell and escaped. He should have died then. But no, he hadn't, and since then he had been waiting for the day he would be back and killed him

Tartarus saw his panic, how completely terrified he was. He wasn't going to hide, knowing that Tartarus knew him, after all he had spent fourteen years in hell. However absent the primordial had been in the meantime, he was sure that he had learned how to read him. How to know exactly what he was feeling.

He laughed, and it sounded like a mountain was breaking. Not a soothing sound, quite the contrary, it was terrifying. It felt like these huge boulders were booming down on him, falling around him and were close to hitting him straight on. The hit never came. He remained fixed, his hand holding the broken sink, he knew if he let go he'd fall to the floor.

Tartarus took a step forward, and Percy closed his eyes, flinching as the whole entire building seemed to be shaking with the movement of this _extravagant_ being. As the immense power he possessed moved with him. He opened his eyes again to see the slits of his helmet glinting, almost like his own eyes were glinting with pleasure at seeing his discomfort. How utterly perplexed and stuck he was.

He couldn't move a muscle.

"I'm _extending an olive branch_ ," Tartarus said, and gods above his knees were trembling. He remembered the first time he had been face to face with the primordial. That he had dropped his sword out of sheer terror. This was worse. He couldn't comprehend what he was saying even though it sounded important. "An offer of peace before any blood is shed," he continued. "Hand yourself in, help me gain world domination, and your _friends_ won't die, as long as they swear allegiance to me. Otherwise I incarcerate them."

He opened his mouth, for a split second actually believing that he was going to say something. That his voice was going to come out of his mouth and his lips would form words. For a split second he believed that, then he didn't, and he closed it down.

Tartarus chuckled, and again, the sound was horrible to his ears, almost deafening. "I don't want to kill any of them," he said, and in truth, Percy found that hard to believe. Then, "You don't have to answer me now. I know it isn't your choice. But the deal is on, will be for however long it takes for you to make up your mind. Mark me, once your friends die there is no resurrection."

Again he couldn't say anything. Although the terror was fading. His heart beat was returning to normal and steady beats. His breathing was smoother, calmer. His shaking had stopped, but he was still terrified to open his mouth and speak. He didn't want that, and he didn't do that. His throat was still dry.

Then it all turned black, and he awoke.

-.-

There was a scream that escaped his lips when he awoke, and he was sitting up _in his bed_. He hadn't felt the fall to the floor because he had never fallen to the floor in the first place. His bed was wet, with his sweat, and so was every inch of him, the clothes he wore were drenched in it. His hair looked like he had just taken a shower by how wet they were.

His eyes were wide open, because the moment he closed them he saw blood and he saw Tartarus and either way he heard the cackling laughter, like a mountain was breaking, every single time. It was deafening. It was hurting him and it was giving him a headache worse than ever. He placed the palms of his hands against his ears, trying to block off the sound.

It only made his head hurt worse.

He literally jumped out of his bed, and punched a hole through the wall. A yell escaped his lips and for the first time since coming back, he was glad that Steve and Sam were gone. Hell knew he would have to explain his agitation, which he had no idea how he was going to. Perhaps one day, but had they been here, they would have rushed in within the end of the minute, and questioned his well being.

He was glad they weren't here.

He punched another hole through the wall, and then another. They were all close to one another, and only made the original hole bigger. Nothing that couldn't be covered by a painting he was sure to buy the very day. He wouldn't tell Tony about it, the genius already had enough on his mind, he shouldn't worry about his problems as well. He had enough of a baggage already.

When he had vented enough, he let out a solid and deep breath. In through his mouth, then out through his nose. He stood still for a moment, a good five minutes, in which he clenched and unclenched his flesh hand, the one he had used to punch the wall, where fingers felt out of place, and bones fractured. Where blood was sliding down fingers where skin had broken.

He reigned back the control he had lost.

Luckily enough he hadn't broken anything like a sink, or the shower.

He went into the bathroom, walked over to the sink. Opened the faucet _which definitely wasn't broken_ , and refreshened his face. He looked at the mirror, _there was no one behind him_. He washed his face again, and then looked back at the mirror once more. _There was no one behind him_. He couldn't make himself believe it though.

He kept on seeing the silhouette even though he couldn't see it. Even though Tartarus wasn't there because that had all been in his head. He had been dreaming about everyone dying, and then the primordial had entered his head —wasn't that a terrifying thought— and had talked to him, _extended an olive branch_ , as he had stated it.

Like he was going to fucking take it.

It had all been in his head, that's what he kept on repeating to himself as the water from the sink kept on running, and he kept on staring at the mirror in front of him, looking behind waiting for the primordial to appear again. He didn't, and goddam it he lost it then.

He punched the cabinet above the sink —the one with the mirror— with his right cybernetic hand. He didn't calculate the strength he was putting in, and he didn't care in all honesty. The hand went through glass and wood, leaving a gaping hole in in. Actually, his punch went all through the cabinet and through the wall.

Then the faucet exploded.

 _Shit_ , he swore out loud. There was no way now, that he was going to be able to cover up the holes and the damage he had caused. No way he was going to do that without Tony not realizing, or Pepper, or Rhodey. Or anyone that came into his room, and it wasn't like he was going to go on from now on without a sink—actually, scratch that…that was exactly what he was going to do.

He grabbed the nearby lying towel and wrapped it around the faucet, stopping the spray of water that was coming out of it. His metal hand worked efficiently, but his left hand was broken, he was sure of it, and there was blood still sliding down the fingers. It was numb, and the short period of time it had spent underneath the water hadn't done anything to help him.

He hadn't wanted it to help, he had wanted to feel the pain to know it was real.

That this wasn't another dream.

That he was _awake_.

He closed his eyes, keeping his hands at the sides of the sink, placing his weight on them. Then opened his eyes and looked at himself through the cracks of the mirror. He was a mess. There were dark bags under his eyes, and his eyes were red, his hair stuck to his sweaty face.

In a moment of frustration he pulled his clothes off briskly, and then stepped into he shower, where he turned the water on, and stepped under it. He didn't care that it was freezing cold, it was much better than the feeling of the toxic air of Tartarus on his skin. He didn't care that he started shaking by how cold it was, only stared at the blood dripping off his fingers and onto the floor of the shower, as it dissolved into the water and went down the drain.

It was refreshing.

He then thought about fixing his hand, otherwise he was sure he was never going to avoid letting Stark know about what had happened, and so he commanded the water to fix it, and slowly, it mended the bones, and sealed the open skin. When he tried moving it, it was stiff, and it still hurt him, but it was fixed. It was as good as he could hope it to be.

His day had gone from bad, to worse.

He didn't think it could get much worse.

Yet he had every reason to believe it could.

.

 **I'm not going to apologize.**

 **But hey, easter eggs in this chapter.**

 **Love everyone of you that's read this far and still follows this story, that has been since the beginning.**

 **And everyone that takes time to write a review.**

 **.**

 **Let's just say that from here on out, the story will mostly be Percy centric...like, from his POV. Maybe some change to Tony or Steve, but that's about it. I mean it's as it's always been...idek.**

 **Great, lots of love,**

 **Hunter**


	27. Overdue Parent Conference

**Heyooo, this honestly felt like such a long time, I swtg.**

 **Anyways, my rambling will be at the end, so please, enjoy:**

.

 **X-X-Indulgendo Inveterascere Colloquium Parent-X-X**

( _Overdue Parent Conference_ )

When he was done with the damned shower, he pulled on another pair of sweatpants, and threw on a matching hoodie. Then put on a pair of black sneakers and then left the room, locking it behind himself.

He walked around the compound for a few minutes, he needed to cool his head before he met Tony, other wise he was going to snap, and he was going to regret it. Like he had thought before, he had enough on his shoulders already, he didn't need to add any more weight, that would make him crumble.

It had grown dark out, which meant that he slept for more than half the day.

It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, only meant that Tony had more reasons to tease him when he was going to find him.

"Friday, where's Tony?" he asked out loud to the AI. Stopping briefly in his walk. There was no point in keeping on stepping when Stark could be in the direction in which he was coming from.

Then her voice resonated, "Mr. Stark is in the main lounge room."

He rolled his eyes, because it _was_ in the direction he had been coming from. He sent a quick thank you on his way to FRIDAY, then turned on his heel and walked towards the lounge room. One he had heard had been the place where the initial dispute of the Sokovia Accords went down. Damn those papers. Apparently, as retold by Vision and Rhodey, Steve had walked out mid conversation.

It was also the same lounge room Percy had first seen Annabeth after four years.

As he walked, he clenched his left hand, feeling the stiff fingers, then held it tightly in his cybernetic one. Not too tight, in fear he was going to overpower it and then end up breaking the fingers again, but tight enough that the pain elicited was soothing, and it kept him rooted the world of the living, rather than in his own mind, where there was nothing but gloom and doom.

He walked the way, took him five minutes actually, enough time for him to realize he had become paranoid. Or that simply he was suffering from very strong PTSD. Either way, every corner he took his breath hitched in anticipation of seeing the primordial stand there, simply there waiting for him. And every corner he took, and there wasn't someone waiting for him, his breath slowed down, only for it to hitch up again when the next corner came up.

He hated himself.

The thoughts of death being a solution were not new in his head, hadn't been for a while now.

He _knew_ that death was a solution, but he also knew that if he died then he would never be able to _get over it_ , and that's what made him want to live. He wanted to get over it, and he wanted to send that bastard back to hell in tiny pieces. To do that he'd first need to get the courage to speak up against him, then he'd think about the killing part. Another reason to live, he knew there would be people that missed him, he wasn't going to do that to them, not when they didn't deserve it.

 _Eventually_ he reached the lounge room, only to find Tony on one of the couches, a man in the other one. In that moment, he wanted to punch Tony straight through the teeth with his metal arm. This was the _second_ time that he allowed one of _them_ inside for a drink, and brought them here. He had to slow his breath down, manage his anger and remember that they weren't enemies anymore. They weren't friends, but the god sitting there, enjoying a glass of bourbon was not an _enemy_.

No, he was his father, if he must say so himself.

Poseidon was his father, he finally told himself, admitting that he was forgiven. That he was okay with it, because if anything his dream had shown him was to come to pass, then he'd as well as hell need a father to help him and aid him through it. It was the least amount of support he'd need, then the Avengers. Then Annabeth…who he still had mixed feelings about.

They saw him, so he couldn't keep standing there, behind the glass panels separating the room in weird ways. They didn't stand up from their leisure spots, instead, Tony waved him over, leaning on the edge of his seat as he had another glass already propped up on the small coffee table. He poured in some bourbon. An inch worth of it in fact.

When his own eyes met those of his father, he offered a small smile, it was the least he could give the man. It was forced, and only a blind man wouldn't realize that. He didn't hide it from his father that there was something wrong, but he also made it clear he wouldn't talk about it until he decided to. So his father didn't open his questions with that.

Tony, hopefully enough, wasn't going to ask at all.

He handed Percy the glass of bourbon, and as he made his way around to one of the free spots, Tony said, "I feel like this is an overdue parent meeting conference." He was definitely on his fourth glass already. More than drunk enough for anyone to be of loose tongue, but not Tony. He had built a tolerance for this stuff.

Percy sat down. "I think you might have had one drink too many, Tones," he said, and he realized he was outright ignoring his father, but he didn't know what to say. Plus, if the god thought it disrespectful, he would have said so already. He didn't.

"Nonsense," Tony said as he crossed his legs. "We were just talking about _you_ , Perce, and your girl. Annabell?"

Poseidon chuckled and he turned around to look at him. _Annabell_ reminded him of when Mr. D was still a thing for him, and that was his nickname for her. It was once perhaps a fond memory, now the thought of Dionysus alone made Percy's blood boil in anger. The god was a selfish one, which he had grown to hate more and more as the days passed. He was definitely on the list of him not caring whether he died or not.

He turned back to look at Tony. "First of all, her name's _Annabeth_ , second, she's not my girl," he told her, and when he looked at his father, he saw confusion.

"I thought you had it cleared out," Poseidon said, and there it was…that wave of power rolling through the room. It reminded him of his dream, of Tartarus and the power his presence alone emitted. It made him cringe, hard enough that he closed his eyes, squeezing them lightly. Almost on instinct, he grabbed his stiff left hand in his right. It ached.

He opened his eyes, shook his head. "No," he said slowly. "She had her reasons, and…I don't know…It's not something that just…changes with a _snap of the finger_."

His father wanted to help, his expression made that clear enough. "She was pregnant with your child, Perseus," he said and he _cringed_ at being called by his full name. Then at acknowledging what he has said. That Tony was present. Apparently Poseidon didn't seem to be on his same line of thought. "She completely broke after you left, she was a mess—"

"Why do _you_ care," he asked him, setting the untouched glass of bourbon down on the coffee table. He was getting angry, and he knew that not all of it was because of Poseidon. He was erratic, unstable. He was on the verge and he didn't have the strength to reach out for help. He didn't want them to know he was on the edge. So he snapped. "Aren't you supposed to be annoyed the child has _your_ blood as well as _Athena's_."

That's when Tony raised a hand, his index finger pointing upward. "Wait a moment," he said, setting down his own glass. "You have a child, and you didn't tell me?" He looked at Poseidon accusingly, making him realize what he'd done. Tony continued. "Seriously?"

He gritted his teeth. "I didn't know until yesterday," he shot at him, and he realized at that, that he was mad at not knowing. That he had deserved to know the day she had known. That a _lot_ of mental pain could have been avoided if she had only told him she was pregnant. If only he had known a child was on his way maybe he would have understood her motive then, and not felt so bad for so long. "Because she didn't tell me, okay. I didn't know."

"Percy," his father said slowly, cautiously. He felt angry, gods above he _was_ angry. When he met his father's eyes he saw the worry. Saw they were glancing between him and the coffee table. Then saw that Stark looked scared, confused, but scared. He looked at the small table to see the glasses shattered on it. The liquid having pooled on it, and some dripping down the leg of the table.

He closed his eyes, ashamed of the loss of control. _Damn it_. He leaned back in his seat, put a hand on his chin, he was scared of himself. Of this continuous loss of control. When he had first met Nick Fury, he had asked him whether he was a threat to humanity, he had replied with, ' _Not anymore_ '. Now he was again, because he had no idea how he could manage to control this amount of power, when he hadn't felt a whisper of it for years.

When he had been younger, he had slowly accumulated it. Over the years, and as it came, he had learned to control its various aspects. Now he had been without it for four long years, where he could get mad without consequences like exploding sinks and breaking glasses. It was all back now, as much as he had once possessed, when he had been at his peak, and he didn't know how to not lose control.

And now Tony was scared of him.

He knew this had all to do with Tartarus. He hadn't had any of these problems for the last two weeks he was back in the world of the walking. This was the primordial's fault, he was sure of it. He had triggered him, and now he was erratic and on edge and again, he had no way of moving away from it, and the longer the time that passed, the more he seemed to being pulled down the cliff.

He was scared he was going to fall, and never be able to pull himself back up.

When he opened his eyes, Poseidon stared at the puddle of bourbon, and as quickly as it had probably happened, the liquid rose and in a bubble, entered the bottle again. Now Stark was looking at it with wide eyes. He stood. "I'm going to let you two have a conversation in private, that sounds good, right?" he said then walked a few steps away. Stopped. "Friday don't record anything, keep it private, give them some privacy." And with that he walked away.

His father tried, he knew he was trying, but he couldn't sometimes. "Percy—"

"Why are you here?" he cut through quickly. He was annoyed, he was pissed and he was scared most of all. He wanted to be done with Poseidon so he could go to the gym and then go a few rounds. He needed to let go of much of the energy he had bottled up inside of himself. The sooner the god was gone, the sooner he could get back control of himself.

Poseidon wanted to press further, ask him what was wrong perhaps, but he saw the look Percy gave him, and he didn't. Instead opted into answering the question he had asked. "The arm," he said. "I told you I'd check in, in two weeks. So here I am—"

"I'm keeping it," he said without hesitation, he wasn't looking at Poseidon anymore. His eyes were set on the coffee table. "But if I ever lose it, I wish the other one be reattached."

His father nodded, something he saw out of the corner of his eyes. "Something that can be done," he said. When Percy didn't offer any more words, he started staring at him and Percy knew that if he looked at his father, all he'd see would be a concerned face. Concerned for him. He really needed the concern. "What happened, Perseus?"

He swallowed. He had promised himself he didn't want Tony to know, he didn't want to put this sort of weight on his shoulders, but it was killing him, and if his father was willing to carry some of it, then it might not be that bad of an idea if he gave into it. If he allowed his father to know, look into it.

"I had a nightmare," he said slowly, his voice soft and _ashamed_. He couldn't look at his father as he spoke. "It was a nightmare within a nightmare…I thought I woke up, but it wasn't over, and then I woke up." He laid out his hand in front of him, his father had probably figured it out already.

Poseidon grabbed his left hand in both his own, and then there was warmth, and Percy knew he didn't deserve it. "Do you want to talk about it?" he inquired, his voice soft as the warmth spread through his hand and to his arm. He felt the numbness and the ache dissipate into the void. He closed his eyes, shook his head. Poseidon didn't push it, although he opened another subject. "You lost control, Perseus." There was a pause after he had stated the obvious. "We can go a few rounds, if you think that might help you."

He opened his eyes. "You mean it?"

His father shrugged. "I don't see why not," he said sincerely. "I can fell the power within you. You will destroy something much bigger and more dangerous than a glass of bourbon when you lose complete control of it. I say we go a few rounds, you let me kick you around." He arched an eyebrow. "You'll feel better."

-.-

It took more will than he could have imagined, to actually stand up from the couch and walk towards the training area. He didn't know how it was going to go, but the thought of it alone was making his fingers twitch in anticipation for the action. It was causing adrenaline to start pumping through his veins, to run all over him. It was making him weak.

He told Friday to alert Tony that that's where they were, so if he needed them, that's where he'd be able to find them. Apart from that, there were no words exchanged between father and son. He didn't have anything to say, and in truth the quiet was good for him, for now. The ringing in his ears had stopped. Poseidon was kind enough to leave him to his own silence.

They reached the training room, he called it the sparring room, since it was so big and held so many possibilities. There were containers, there for hiding spots when they fought against one another, on the sides there were dummies, and it was lined with secluded rooms where each of them could train on their designated fighting style. He remembered the hours he had once spent on the firing ranges, gods his aim was terrible.

He walked over to the racks lined with weapons. They varied from airsoft firearms to blunt swords and knifes and axes. It sucked that he was never satisfied with any of them, that he was never good enough with any of them. That they were either too big from what he had once been used to, or unbalanced for his liking.

He heard the sound of a heavy stud hitting the floor behind, turned to see his father, his trident having magically appeared in his hands. He looked at the sharp edges of the each of the dents at the head of it. He knew his father was more than capable in its use. He only hoped he wasn't going to lose his other arm as he fought him because he knew that in the state of mind in which he was in, he was in no shape to beat him.

A sad grin appeared on his face. He had left his actual sword back up in his room, and he had no intention of going to get it. He was about to turn back to the rack of swords he was searching through, when Poseidon threw something at him, a tiny inanimate object. Out of reflex, he caught it in his right hand. It took him a moment to acknowledge exactly _what_ the golden pen was.

Too late then, Poseidon was already attacking. His feet kicked, first with the right and then with the left one. He used his right arm to reflect one, and then stepped back from the other. They were in a quick sequence, and there came more. Reflect one and step back. Soon he was backed against one of the walls and he still hadn't uncapped the damn pen.

Poseidon stabbed at his head with the head of his trident. He rolled out of the way, just in time so that the trident lodged itself into the wall instead. This gave him the time he needed to uncap the pen, and feel —for the first time in four years— as Riptide grew in his hand, and weighed it down. As a perfectly balanced sword became an elongation of his arm, and it _felt_ right, like no other sword had ever felt right.

He grinned softly, he had _missed_ it.

Then he attacked at his father. He kept the sword in his left hand, and then used his cybernetic arm as a shield. They hacked and stabbed at each other, and every time the trident hit his arm, it came away with sparks but no marks. It was wicked. The vibration of the impact was barely felt. He had also mastered the use of the sword with his left hand.

All in all it was a different fighting style. Attack with his left and defend with his right. Exactly the opposite of what it had once been.

As they exchanged blows, and some of the steam blew off him, he worked on his cybernetic arm. Turning it to its black color and then elongating the long claws that came out. He had only _heard_ of Wolverine, but this sure as hell reminded him of it. He used the claws like he would use a sword, found it was harder though, because a sword he could hold in many ways, these however…

"So what happened with Annabeth?" his father said, stabbing the trident straight at his gut. The sudden talk _did_ catch him off guard. He had thought this was a no talk time. The trident almost cut through his stomach, instead he grabbed it with his metal hand, surprising both himself and his father. They both looked at it, but then Poseidon was quicker to recover and twisted the trident around, butting the bottom of it on his head.

He stumbled back, holding his head as his vision swam and he swayed on his feet. Damn it his father had meant it when he had said he was going to get his ass kicked. Perhaps it was time to _do_ something, instead of playing around. He stared down at his father from a couple of feet away. "I'm not in the mood."

"I know," Poseidon said, and the tone annoyed him to no end. The god made a wide swing with his trident, a move Percy had all the time to dodge. What he hadn't expected, was for the god to bring in his divine powers, a spray of water hit him square in the stomach. This time he fell forward, barely catching himself with his hands. "But I'm asking anyway…A bit rusty, aren't you?"

Percy looked up, a malicious smirk spread over his face. "I'm just getting started," he said, and thought, ' _Maybe it's time to play_ ', and with it, charged at his father.

Poseidon brought his trident up, but Percy slid under it, and therefore got behind the god's defenses. He had a clear shot from here, and he damn took it. Slashing as the god's abdomen and not giving a single damn about it. Ichor pooled out, and it did so quickly, the god flashes away, a couple of steps back. When Percy was on his feet again, the rip in his clothes were gone, as was the ichor. He knew though, the wound was still paining him. Another grin.

"Better now?" he asked his father, like a child would ask him of approval. See if he was impressed, if he was proud. Poseidon's returning grin was all the answer he needed before he went at it again. His anger was lowering, his feeling of self pity deescalating and that feeling of paranoia…it was decreasing. This was helping him, but it was far from over.

His father placed his the trident on the floor and then it happened. The air felt tight, then he felt it. The water particles in the air condensed into liquid behind the god. They formed a cloud of water, and then started swirling, like a tornado. Percy's stomach settled, he knew that it would, at one point, be coming after him, and his father was giving him no mercy on this.

Just as the thought passed, the wave of water shot forward, towards him. It was all he could do to raise his arms, almost like a shield, and will the water to hit an invisible wall in front of him. But these were his powers against that of the god that had given them to him. He was ridiculously outnumbered in this. The water hit the wall, but then it came down on him from above.

He was quick to fall on the floor, and the scalding hot water hit him everywhere and…he might have yelled, or screamed, all he knew was that once it was all down on him it didn't stop there. It circled around him, and —he couldn't always breathe in it, because it was Poseidon, and whenever the god made him believe that he was able to get the air he needed, the ability was cut off again— and he felt like he was drowning when he really wasn't.

At one point the water subsided and went back behind the god, swirling calmly, at bay waiting for it to be used again. He on the other hand, was on his knees, and panting. Riptide he had lost, but felt the unfamiliar but familiar weight and shape of it in his pocket. His cybernetic had also turned back to its original form. He spit out some of the water that had gone in his mouth. "Damn you!" he yelled at the god in front of him as he got back on his feet.

His hands were out, and the water that had once been under the control of his father fell under his, and it shot forward like a geyser against a surprised god. Percy stepped out of the way as his father was shot across the room with the force of the sea. As he dented said wall, and he took the time to dry himself up, bring out the pen and uncap it, hearing the sword elongate from its pen form.

Poseidon turned the water back into vapor, and the air seemed to settle down again. He chuckled. "One day, perhaps, you'll be doing this with _your_ son," he said, and that got to him. He hadn't really thought about the little child growing up, but he realized he wasn't going to do so now either, he was fighting a god. At the moment _this_ was more important than thoughts of a child he knew about for one day.

He threw Riptide at his father like a knife. It lodged right next to his head, and he saw the cut on his ear, the ichor that was coming out of it. His lost trident was back in his hand and he shot one of those energy beams he had seen so long ago. As it hit him, and he flew across the room to the far back wall, then crumpled down on the floor, he knew it wasn't exactly the same…

He made the earth shake, then charged at where Poseidon stood, again, got underneath his defenses and grabbed Riptide out from the wall, and then hacked down, only to find that the god was ready for the attack. He deflected the blow and then shot another one of those beams, he dodged it. Then he tried stabbing at the god, but —he had a _child_ — Poseidon was quick to grab his left wrist and rotate it a way that had him weak and dropping the sword in a moment.

The trident disappeared, and then both his hands were being turned around behind his back, and he was being pressed against the wall. "She doesn't deserve what you're giving her," his father whispered in his ear. "And neither does the child. She had grieved for you more than anyone else in the world of the living, and she has worked day and night on trying to find you, Perseus. She doesn't deserve what she's getting. And the child will need his father when he grows up."

He closed his eyes, and for a moment his mind brought him back to the nightmares. He flinched. "Dad, you're hurting me," he said, and to himself, he sounded like the twelve year old on that first day he had met the god in person, exchanged words and heard how sorry he was that he was born. _A hero's fate_ , he had called it, he was sure this was much much worse.

Immediately after his words came out, Poseidon let go of him and then there was an awkward cough. "This is definitely not a great time to butt in, but…did you guys really need to vent _in_ side?" Tony asked them, standing in between a half broken door, standing on one of its three hinges. He looked around the training area, for the first time noticing the damage and the mess that they had caused.

The containers that randomly laid around the room were all caved in, some were in shards of pieces. The racks of weapons were all scattered on the floor, mixed with one another and a few steps from where they stood, the floor held a break from when he had made the earth shake. He didn't regret it, for sure, but this was the second —no third— room he had torn to pieces in one day.

He looked at Tony apologetically. "I'll help clean up," he said, as if that would do anything. He turned around, to look at his father, perhaps ask him if he could give a hand, use some of his powers, but he was gone when he checked. Tony had his eyebrows raised.

"Wow," he said. "Definitely not what I had imagined him to be, but I see where you get your looks. Anyone ever tell you, you're like a younger version of him."

"Just a couple of hundred times," Percy said as he walked over to him. He purposefully left Riptide on the floor. He knew it was going to come back, but at the moment it was okay if he didn't tell Tony. He wanted to keep this to himself. "I am sorry Tony."

Tony smiled, almost like he was disappointed but also as if saying, ' _What can one do?_ '.

That's when he remembered that the only reason he had gone out of his room in the first place was to talk to Tony. There was something he needed to get off his mind, and he'd need to talk with Steve for that, and the only line that went to Steve —that wasn't Iris Messaging, god he was not going to compromise them like that— Tony had. So hence, Tony was his solution.

"Hey," he said, almost awkwardly. "I really need to talk to Steve…Any way I can use that burner phone he gave you."

Tony's expression quickly turned serious and solemn. "No," he said sternly. A dry answer, not up to debate or any sort of discussion. Percy had to try.

Tony started walking away, he followed through the broken door. "Tony, its important," he said.

The genius turned to look at him. He looked ready to give up on Percy and kick him out —in fact he was surprised he still hadn't. His eyes were wide, he had that look of his, almost like he wanted to cry but he was too damn proud for it. Whatever had happened in Siberia…Steve had really done a number on him. "No," he repeated. "Find something else to contact that bastard with."

Then he walked away, leaving Percy to stare after him. He didn't call, knowing there was no sense in it. Tony had said no twice, it was a solid answer and it wasn't going to waver. He swallowed down the incoming frustration. Then headed for the first kitchen, because boy was he starving.

.

 **So in case you haven't realized yet, this story will continue on to being from Percy's POV. Maybe switch up sometimes to either Tony or Steve, but not often.**

 **I can safely say that I am confident of where this story is going and wAoW. This story has 700 followers -imma say 700 even tho its 699, sounds nicer- like _thank you_. **

**When I first started I never thought it'd get to that...like I never thought I'd be writing 150,000 words of it, but that's okay. About that, I might split this into two, like, when this story reaches the events of Infinity War, I might end this one there, and continue it as another story...Tell me what you think about that idea...I might scrap it if it's not nice.**

 **-.-**

 **You don't have to, but boy, if you have smth that helps with stress then _please_ tell me, I am the most stressed and anxious person I know.**

 **I hate everything that's being going on this year and I don't know how to deal with it so I don't and then I find there's this huge pile of shit waiting for me and I can't. So if you know anything, please tell me.**

 **-.-**

 **As always, thank you for reading till here, it's a long ride and I can't even believe the amount of people who are reading this. You have no idea how much it means. _A lot_ doesn't even begin to describe it.**

 **This is one of the good things going on, I must say.**

 **So thank you.**

 **Hunter**


	28. Try to Fix Things

**Heyo, welcome back!**

 **I'm keeping it short.**

 **Enjoy:**

 **.**

 **X-X-Rebus Probabile Figere-X-X**

( _Try To Fix Things_ )

-.-.-

27th February

-.-.-

A good month had passed since Percy had last asked Tony about using that burner phone to get into contact with Steve. He wanted to get in contact with the Captain to get some questions and doubts out of his head, that alone was the sole purpose of his need. Totally. He was not going to mention Tony, not at all. He wasn't going to mention his war buddy either.

He wanted to ask about the cryo-tank, whether Barnes had actually gone under —he wanted to know what was going on with the whole lot of them. Sam, Wanda—dammit— _Natasha_ and _Clint_. He'd tried reaching them in all the ways he knew how, but nothing had come back on his end of the line. It pissed him off, because they left him. _They left him_. After all they had been through he hadn't thought it even a possibility that they would, but they had.

Gods above he would have been the _first_ to stand against the Accords. The only point was that no one, and he literally meant no one outside of the Avengers themselves, knew his identity. They should have known that he would have stood by them, or at least trusted him with their locations, so that he could meet them. He wasn't part of the Accords, he hadn't signed them, there was no law going against _him_. Yet.

He didn't admit it easily, but he was slightly offended.

They had left without him, and now he was stuck there, making negotiations with the very same demigods he had despised and hated for the previous four years. It wasn't exactly an ideal situation for him. Hell, maybe going to Tartarus and back would be more bearable than having to see them coming in the compound and spending time with Tony. Hours to no end after that.

That left him, with Vision, if he wanted company at all. Which was exactly the reason why he took a _lot_ of days off. Actually packed a luggage and moved back into his tiny and cramped apartment in Manhattan. An expensive little thing, but for where it was situated, it was totally worth it. He spent most of the four weeks there rather than in the compound. After all he had a life, _right_.

He tried visiting his sister as often as he could, but actually found himself busy writing in notebooks. First thing he had done when picking up the first notebook, was writing down the names of the people he had seen dead on the cross in his dream-vision sort of thing. Then he had written down the descriptions of the other individuals. Then, he wrote down what the primordial had told him, and he tried, gods he tried, to understand what it all meant. So he wrote and he wrote, and when he got tired of writing he picked up his bike's keys and rode down to the shooting range, and if that didn't help him then he went to the boxing gym, blow off some steam.

He hadn't told Tony about the dream, he hadn't told Vision or Annabeth or _anyone_ if that was the matter. No one knew what he had seen, and no one knew the deal that the primordial had offered him. No one knew he could offer them immunity as long as he sold his soul to the devil. What was worse was seeing their faces and thinking whether one day they were going to die, because if they were and he said nothing…he wasn't sure he was going to be able to live with himself.

 _Annabeth_ , gods Annabeth was also a problem in his life, and right now, she was a big one.

She came and went from the compound as well, her brain, combined with Tony's and Leo's had done wonders already, he could only imagine what they could do with more time. They didn't simply build weapons, they talked strategy, they talked tactics. Conversations which he should have probably been involved in, but wasn't, because every time word came that they were to come, Percy always found himself on the opposite side of the city.

After that one night at camp, where they'd made love and he'd left before she woke, he hadn't managed to find the _courage_ to face her, especially after seeing her dead again in his dreams. He was afraid that if he did talk to her again, he was going to totally forgive her and forget what she'd meant to him, and pick it all up from where he had left it all off. That perhaps in nine months time there would be another mini him running around the place.

Which brought him around to the topic of Charlie, which he shut down immediately as it came up. He couldn't think of the child without wanting to get there and get to know him better. Talk to him, interact him, see what he could do. He wanted to know the kid, he really did, but kid meant Annabeth, and—

He had been looking for her. That was a not so honest statement. He had known she was coming over to talk with Tony, as well as Jason and Reyna were, and he had told himself that he was going to be there this time, that he was going to talk to them. The moment he saw their car parking through a camera feed, he had ditched his idea of being a part of it, and again, found _some_ thing to do on the other side of the compound.

Then after hours upon hours of doing that, he had questioned FRIDAY wether they were still there, and when she replied that 'yes, they are', he made his way to them. He was just turning a corner to them when he crashed into them. Tony had been leading the walk, with Annabeth beside him, Reyna and Jason behind them. He managed to crash right into _her_.

As cliche as it sounded, she dropped the notepad she had been holding and due to his awkwardness at bumping into her when the last thing they had done was sex, he bent down quickly to get her fallen things. Luckily enough, Tony didn't stop walking, actually urged Reyna and Jason to follow him in the direction he had come from.

He avoided eye contact for as long as he could manage as he handed her notebook back to her, then he made a move to clean his hands on his hips. He didn't move, and luckily for him, she didn't either, and after too long of a silence he forced himself to look at her and say something: "Hi, um…" he started, almost unsure of where he was going.

She was smiling painfully. "You were gone before I woke up," she said, and he felt the beating of his heart grow a little quicker. He had never been _good_ at this stuff, it had always made him — _erratic_. When he didn't come up with anything, she continued, "I mean I understand why, so I didn't reach out, knowing if you wanted you would."

"I'm reaching out now," he said quickly, before he could control his mouth and not say anything. His words overlapped and its a mystery to him how she managed to understand what he had said. She smiled, almost fondly at him, but before she could reply to that he added, "I want to go slow." She didn't seem affected by that, only kept on smiling, a small light glinting in her eyes. "How about a date, tonight?"

She chuckled. "That sounds great to me," she told him and it was true happiness in her voice, which he was glad to hear. "I can't earlier than eight, there are some things I need to take care of—"

"Eight's perfect," he interrupted her, knowing she could manage to go on and on with an explanation. "I'll pick you up at the camp's entrance at eight." He left it as a question.

"Yes," she said, a smile on her face.

"Be elegant," he told her, knowing just the place.

-.-

He was rubbing the edge of a glass when Tony found him in the common lounge, with scotch in it. It wasn't his first and neither his second. No he was well on his fourth glass of scotch when Tony stepped through the glass panels to find him there, contemplating his life's decisions.

The billionaire didn't address him immediately, although Percy did turn to look at him as he walked to the coffee machine and made himself a cup. "Isn't a little bit early, to be drinking that heavily?" Tony asked him as he walked over to the couches.

Percy looked at him, almost through him before he acknowledged the questions he had been asked. He nodded his head numbly. It was like he was there but he wasn't at the same time. He pointed a very stiff finger in the air. "Yes it is," he agreed with the billionaire. "But I…am going on a date."

Tony chuckled before taking a sip of his coffee from his mug. Then he cocked his head to the side. "God Annabeth sure has you wrapped around her finger," he said in his know-it-all tone. "You should have seen how she was glowing after you asked her out."

"That obvious?" he asked, unsure. Tony nodded at him and Percy deflated a little bit. "I don't know what I'm doing," he admitted. "I left because she betrayed me, and I can't forgive myself if I just go back to her. Yet every time she comes over, I force myself away because I know I want her. I'm trying to do this right, by going slow, but I don't know if I'll _manage_ to go slow."

"Then don't," Tony told him. "Slow, fast. Either way, you're gonna end up in bed together. And that's gonna be sooner rather than later. I'm telling you." There was a smirk on his face, and although the subject he was ridiculing was himself, Percy found himself be happy to see the resemblance of a smile on Stark's face again. It sure as hell was a good sight.

The liquor was messing with his brain, he was sure of it. He wouldn't have a mumbled an agreement if he were sober, then taken the last gulp of the scotch in his glass. When he looked at Tony again, the smirk was gone, as was any indication he had smiled just seconds before. This disturbed Percy to no end —not that he was a role model, but if there was someone in the world who deserved to be happy, it was Tony. Between all of them it had probably always been Tony.

Not that the others didn't, heck he knew they all had horrid stories no one would trade with. Natasha was brought up a weapon, taught the effective ways to kill from the tender age of five. Clint was an outcast from his own family, his own brother had ruined his hearing. Sam was an ex-military, who's partner died when he could have done nothing but watch as it happened. Wanda had lost her parents to a shell, and then her brother to a war they had not needed to be a part of. Banner was a science experiment gone wrong, where the government was partly involved. Thor…he was a demigod, and that was all he needed to know that his life was not normal by the least. Steve, he had lost everyone he loved when he went in the ice and stayed in it for the good part of a century and Tony…Tony had it bad since the beginning of time, and he still had it bad.

He had it worse than all of them, if perhaps he didn't count himself.

The things that had happened to him, Percy couldn't say they wouldn't have a broken a man if Tony wasn't as strong as he was. He had literally had to go through his childhood with an absentee father who never once in his life told him he was proud, just for him along with his mother to die. Then the person who had taken the father role in his life, had sold him out to terrorists so that he could help build a bomb to kill the men he was trying to protect them with. He had taken a nuke into space and that had left him traumatized, and when that happened the woman he had been attached with left because she couldn't deal with the stress.

Now Steve, a man he had continuously heard about from his father, a man his father never shut up about, a man he had learned to trust and respect in the small ways that made him _him_ , had left him too. Had chosen James Barnes, a man who could not be his best friend —in no way in hell after everything he had been put through because people change— before him after everything he had given.

The Avengers —his third family in a way— had left him too and he was now left with the remnants of what had once been. Left with the remnants of a team that had _had_ each other's backs through thick and thin, a team that wasn't a team anymore.

And what he received for it was a letter of self centered apology and a burner phone.

Percy _was_ going to have a talk with Steve when the time came around to it.

"All of this…" he said, gesturing to the scotch on the coffee table, on the glass he still held in his hand and at himself. "It got me thinking." Tony looked at him as if saying, ' _go on_ ,' and so he did. "Annabeth took a blow at me very hard—" He stopped right there, closed his eyes as Tony smirk came back on. "That is _not_ what I meant. What I _did_ mean, I took a hard blow from her. Yet, here I am, going on a date with her because what she did doesn't compare with what I need. So…why can't you and Steve figure it out as well?"

 _Wrong thing to say_ , he thought as the words finished coming out of his mouth. He was so blaming it all on the large amount of scotch he had drank.

Tony didn't get angry, not immediately but Percy knew he had killed the mood. "That's just it," he said. "Her betrayal to you doesn't compare to what you _need_. I don't _need_ that son of a—"

"Yes, you do," Percy interrupted and gods above it was none of his business and it was a courtesy Tony hadn't pointed it out already. This was the last of it, he told himself. He was not going to mention Steve again to Tony, or say they should make up, because it was none of his business but…he had dug his grave for today, he might as well lower himself in the ground. "You're lying to yourself if you don't think that."

Tony held up a hand. "I'm going to let that go, because you're drunk," he said and he if he wasn't before, he was angry _now_. Beyond it. "I don't care about what happened in Siberia," he started. "I overreacted, I admit it. Barnes wasn't to blame, no _Steve_ was. All the time I was trying to get to that poor man, I should have really been going for Steve. Because he _knew_." That's when Percy knew he should have definitely not brought it up, his voice wavered. " _He knew_ , for _years_ , and he didn't tell me and when I asked him about it, he _lied_. He told me he hadn't known, but he _had_. He didn't even have the decency to say the truth about it. He _lied straight to my face_ and didn't feel an ounce of regret for it. His buddy had tears, but Steve… _nothing_. That's when I realized, he doesn't care about _us_ , he doesn't care about the _accords_ , all he cared about was _Barnes_."

Percy couldn't say he was against what Steve had done, that he had chosen Barnes over all of them. He couldn't say he agreed to it either, it had been selfish. But selfless was all the man had been since he had been injected with the super soldier serum back in world war two.

He had gone again orders to walk into an enemy camp —to save Barnes— but also to save hundreds others. He had gone in the ice days after Barnes' apparent death to save millions. He had woken up, and the first thing he did was not to get used to the new world, it was _save_ it from an alien invasion. They had taken _him_ in. He had worked against Hydra and taken it down along with the helicarriers _to save Barnes,_ but he saved three million people while at it, himself included. He searched for Barnes, but put that on hold, when Tony built a murdering robot that raised a city from the ground, he stopped his _own_ mission, to _save the world_.

He could not hold it against him, that now that he had to choose _again_ , between the man that he claimed had always been there and the rest of them, he had chosen Barnes. He _wouldn't_ hold it against him. What he would hold against him though, was leaving Tony in Siberia with a broken suit. Was lying to Tony about his parents all the time he had known. Had he been afraid that with Tony knowing the truth the billionaire would have stopped helping him find the man? If that was the case then he didn't know Tony at all.

Tony would have understood.

Tony would have helped even more if he had known, because they were both victims of what had happened that night.

Steve had chosen a man he had known his whole life, the only remaining person from his time —especially since Peggy died during the whole thing— instead of the new family he had made. Because Barnes was his _real_ family, a brother from another mother. A brother who had known him before the serum, who had known Steve Grant Rogers before he became Captain America, and perhaps that's what he needed to fill him. Perhaps he owed it to Barnes as well.

"I'm sorry Tony," he said at last. It seemed this was always how these conversations ended. He decided this was going to be the end of them all. "I overstepped my boundaries." He felt sober as he said that, almost like the liquor was holding off on having affect on his brain long enough for him to say it. "I won't step over them again. What happened between the two of you…it's between the two of you. It's none of my business."

Tony nodded, getting a last sip from his cup of coffee. "That's good to hear," he said. "Now go get ready for you fancy dinner. You don't want to make a bad first impression, do you?"

Percy chuckled, but did just that.

-.-

Steve was aware of what he had done, but it had been his choice to do so, and so he did not have to apologize to anyone for it, except Tony, there were a couple of things he might need to sit down with Tony to apologize for. One of them was not telling him about his parents, he'd done that over a letter already, but he wasn't foolish enough to know that would be enough, he would need to fix it in person.

If it could even ever be fixed.

The other, was his own reaction in Siberia, and for lying there as well. He wouldn't apologize for the fight, or for Bucky, because he didn't regret _those_ things. He just regretted everything that had led to it. Starting from Tony's parents, to the Sokovia Accords who had inevitably, triggered this mighty fall from grace that the whole team had suffered from.

He was never going to apologize for Bucky, though. If he had to do it a hundred more times, he would have done it just the same. He would have showed up at the apartment when he did, he would have kept T'Challa from killing him. He would have gotten him out when he did, he would have fought with him at the airport in Germany. He would have fought Tony to keep him safe, he would have left Tony…

As harsh as that sounded.

He had many wrongs, but he didn't believe —he _wouldn't_ believe— that anything involving Bucky was part of them. Not after everything they had been through, after the amount of times he had lost him, and found him only to lose him again, over and over and over. A never ending cycle which he knew one day was going to be the total end of him. Because he knew that however badly he was going to fight it, it was going to happen again. He was going to lose him again, and one day it will be for good.

The end of the line.

What had happened in Siberia had happened, he blamed himself for it, he knew it was his fault. Knew that if only he hadn't been scared of how Tony would react to the news that Bucky had been the hand behind his parent's murder, then right now things would be looking a hell lot better than they were. And he had _tried_ apologizing, but he knew a letter wasn't enough, like he knew that if he called the phone he had given Tony, he wouldn't pick up. It simply wasn't Tony.

Perhaps he would have signed. There are days to which he dwells on it for hours to no end. _If Bucky had died on that train back in 1945_ , if Bucky hadn't been in the equation. Then perhaps he would have signed. He was in it though, and the moment he had seen those documents, he had seen them as an obstacle to get to him. To finish a mission he had started two years prior after DC.

It was out of the question then, but it started making sense when they got caught in Romania. When they _had him_ , when he was alive and perhaps things weren't looking so bad anymore after all, but then things didn't go as planned and they got worse and worse still and all he had his head wrapped around was that he could not let anything happen to his friend.

After all James Barnes had never let anything happen to him when they were younger, and even if this man wasn't the same Bucky he remembered, he owed him. Everything. He owed him for all the times he found himself in lost alleys with a bully beating the living daylight out of him, and in came Bucky, to the rescue saving his ass. For all the times that he would be laying down on his bed, sick to the core, and there was Bucky, next to him reassuring him he would be okay, keeping him updated on the classes he was missing.

Bucky was there when his mother died, he was there when no one else was. When he had lost everyone he called family but him. He was there to cheer him up and keep him rooted, keep him wanting to live when there was nothing for him to live for except him. Bucky had been the only one —before Peggy, and doctor Erskine— that had looked at Steve and seen more than skin and bones. That had stood by him, not because he was Captain America, but because he was Steve Rogers.

Bucky was family to him, probably the reason why he managed to survive long enough to get into the army, and he would be damned before he put someone else's well being above his. If that meant becoming a fugitive, and putting him before himself, then so be it. Bucky had been there for every second of it, _following him into the jaws of death_ , he had _died_. Steve wasn't above paying the debt he owed him.

Especially after what was done to him after he _died._

And he knew it very well in his head, that the Bucky Barnes he had known then was dead.

The man he had saved today was not him, but he wasn't the Winter Soldier either. He was a third persona, someone that was just learning to live again, and learning to live with what his hands had done, and Steve would give him all the time in the world that he needed for him to find his new identity. And if that man did not want Steve in his life, then Steve was ready to accept it.

He owed it to him.

It didn't mean it didn't hurt when he decided to go back into cryo-sleep. On the contrary, it was like he was being shot in the gut all over again, only this time, it was more than one bullet. It was dozen. It hurt even more when Princess Shuri told him not to be there when he woke up, that it would be better so Bucky could choose what _he_ wanted, not what he thought _Steve_ wanted.

It was hard for him to accept that, but he had, and that was when he went to free the rest of his team from the Raft Prison. Where Clint and Scott decided to try their luck at finding a way around the Accords, and perhaps not end up in prison. Word still needed to come back from that, as he wasn't even sure they had made it back yet.

Perhaps Tony would help them out, a hand he didn't believe would extend to him if he chose that road. So he didn't even think it, and neither did Natasha —who somehow found them and joined them— or Sam, or Wanda. So, knowing that he wasn't needed in Wakanda, they kept themselves out. They started traveling from country to country and started fighting where they found necessary.

.

 **AAaaand that's a wrap for the next month.**

 **Hopefully by then the trailer to Avengers 4, or at least the title to it will be out.**

 **In the meantime there is little we can do.**

 **Hope you enjoyed it, comments are a boost.**

 **This story has officially surpassed 700 followers, thank you so much to all of you/**

 **Hunter**


	29. Reunion

**HIIIII, I swear the view count on this thing is dropping, or like, reviews are for sure. Please u guys, fill me up!**

 **Also, Avengers _Endgame_ what!**

 **The trailer is more depressing than my life rn.**

 **Tony is dying, Steve is crying and Thor looks like he has no reason to live. Clint has gone all killer and Natasha looks to be the only one still sane after all of it. NO emotions whatsoever. I can't wait for the movie to come out. Although it's gonna be hella sad.**

 **.**

 **Enjoy.**

 **.**

 **X-X-Reconciliatio-X-X**

( _Reunion_ )

True to his word, he was parked outside of Camp Half-Blood with a sexy car, looking even sexier himself. After all, four years knowing Tony had him learning how to groom himself properly for occasions such as these. In fact, he was wearing a blue suit with a vest underneath it since the weather wasn't that hot, and the occasion called for it. Even though the more he thought of it the more he realized he should have not worn it, since he was going to be eating, possibly a lot and well…his stomach might be tight by the end of the night.

Tony had complimented him before he left, as had Pepper —wherever she came from. He figured that they had figured it out, possibly and gods above _hopefully_. As he mentioned before, if there was one of them that deserved to be happy right now, it was Tony, and if they had figured it out then he was happy for them. Which had him on a great mood as he drove to Long Island Sound.

The ceiling of the car was down, so the wind ripped at his untamable hair as he drove with a soft tune of music following him. A smooth ride which he was okay to make to the Island since he had _wanted_ this, he had been the one to ask _her_ out on a date, and luckily enough for him, she had accepted. Even after how he had acted after that night a month prior.

In all honesty, he was surprised she had even said _yes_ , and not walked right past him.

He considered himself lucky, even though a month prior he had walked out on _her._ But that was exactly the reason why he wasn't simply walking back in and keep things going. Why they were going out, to dinner and not directly to one of their houses. He knew they could, he knew that if they did, they would skip dinner and he'd say to hell with his idea of going slow, and they _would_ find themselves entangled on a bed, just like Tony had said they would.

Oh man, screw Tony. This was his moment to stay out of the mess that had become of their lives. He was going to enjoy the night.

He didn't know just how much until he saw her coming out of the Camp and down the hill. A stupid grin crossed his face in no time. Just by looking at her, at how stunning she looked in those tight waisted but looser down the leg black pants, and the loose yet framing formal shirt that cut low on her neck. Her neck a beautiful golden chain, two things on it, a ring —her father's, and wow respect for managing not to lose it after so long— and then one of the beads, the one with the trident. His first year.

He got out of the car to meet her, buttoning up his suit as he did, after all, every time he sat down he had to unbutton it in fear of breaking apart the stitching of the buttons. So he was sure he looked real professional as he stepped out of his ridiculous car and stood to meet her. She seemed to think so because her eyes held approval and pride amongst other things, which he was sure was all mirrored in his own eyes.

She looked beautiful, and he said that with care because— in the back of his head there was still a voice telling him that she had betrayed him, that he shouldn't even be there in the first place going out on a date with her. But he was there, and she did look beautiful, and soon enough he managed to silence that nagging voice, telling himself that he would deal with his feelings after tonight, or that he would at least try his best to. The voice stopped talking, but it promised it wouldn't last long.

"You clean up well," she told him, clasping the purse in both hands in front of her.

She looked damn beautiful and he wanted to tell her that. "I know right," he said sarcastically. He couldn't bring himself to tell just what he thought. "You don't look too bad yourself," he joked. She chuckled, inclining her head, a loose hair fell over her face. She pulled it behind her ear, and when she looked at him, she was smiling still. "What?"

"I've never seen you wear a _vest_ ," she told him, and then she giggled softly, and he thought if that was the first time he had heard her _giggle_. Annabeth Chase did not _giggle_. He thought he was imagining things.

He wasn't going to push her on that. "You've never seen me in a suit," he countered what she had said, for the moment forgetting about the giggle. He started leading her to the passenger door, on the other side of the car.

Opened the door for her. She paused. "I've imagined you in one though," she told him and as then closed the door for her like a proper gentleman. He made his way into the driver seat and the moment he shut the door on his side she added, "And you were never wearing a _vest_."

He turned the engine on, hand on the wheel and the other on the gears. He looked at her sidelong. "And I don't remember the last time I heard you _giggle_."

She laughed, and he pulled out of the parking lot, getting on the road to a very fancy and expensive restaurant. She was the first to break the silence.

"So where are we going?" she asked, and he had to look at her before even wanting to acknowledge the question. Her hair was tied in a bun, but the loose strands were whipping in the wind and damn he hated himself for putting himself through this process. He hated that his feelings towards her were so split down the middle and that the part his heart didn't want to win was winning. Although he knew it was for the best. She might be the most beautiful woman he knew but he didn't _know_ her because she sure as hell was not the same person he had gotten together with when they were seventeen.

He put his eyes back on the road. "You'll see when we get there, Princess." He mentally scolded himself. He could hide behind chivalry all he wanted, but the truth remained he realized, they had both changed.

And that's what bugged him the whole car ride.

This whole thing about going slow, he realized, was not all because of how she had betrayed him, it was because he was scared that she wanted someone that she remembered but wasn't there anymore. That they'd get into it, he'd start committing just for them to realize it wasn't what it once was. They weren't what they once were.

That they were different and not necessarily the people they had fallen in love with.

They were probably twelve when they fell in love with each other, he couldn't remember the specifics at the moment. Then they got together at sixteen and then spent fourteen years in hell. They might have depended on one and the other after that, but that didn't mean they still knew who the other person was. They might have been together for those fourteen years —for the most part— but that didn't mean he knew who she was when she got out and that she knew who _he_ was when he got out.

They went in two people and came out two different ones, and those fourteen years…they hadn't spent it all together, and stuff _must_ have happened that the other didn't know. He knew there were things he didn't tell her, so who knew what she didn't tell him. Things that had _definitely_ changed him, and he was sure of that because they had changed _him_. And perhaps they didn't see that in each other in the short few months after, but he was sure they were going to see it now.

When they had just spent four years apart.

He knew and he was sure she knew as well, things simply _couldn't_ go back to how they once were.

Not after the betrayal, and after the four years he spent building himself another life, a new identity when he couldn't find his old one after hell. Where he had met other people and let go of the person he had once been to the gods, of the loyal to a fault demigod. He had let go of _that_ person willingly and then built another one surrounded by other people, by other work environments, different goals.

He had _grown up_.

They both had in their own ways, even though not a single day seemed to have passed on Annabeth due to her immortality. She looked the same she had then. But he didn't. He was a thirty-six-year-old man in the body of a twenty-one-year-old man. He was an old man in other words, for what he was doing anyway. Damn it he was technically older than Steve if he didn't count the years he had spent in the ice.

But that wasn't the point, it was that he wasn't who he used to be, and he wanted to be sure that she was aware, and from there, he wanted to learn to trust her again, and then…only time would tell.

It was a silent car ride, and he blamed himself for it, but he couldn't help but get lost in those thoughts, and exactly how he was going to break them to her.

And damn it was silent until they were seated in a table he had picked when reserving. Silent until after they had ordered food and drinks, they would start with appetizers. Until they got delivered the glasses of wine and they clinked them to toast to nothing and took that first sip. Annabeth was quick to set her own down, he was not so.

"Percy, what's wrong?" she asked him, a slight hint of worry in her voice. He probably looked like he was brooding. "You haven't said a word since we got in the car."

He didn't realize his eyes weren't focusing until he focused on her. "I'm sorry," he said, apologizing for his behavior. "But I was thinking of an appropriate way to start this evening, and I got lost in thought. It won't happen again, I promise." He gave out his words so carelessly, he was afraid he was going to break that promise before the night was close to being over.

"So what's the occasion?" she asked him, and he was glad for her to start setting out the ground for him like that. She understood there were things he wanted to talk about, and she was giving him the perfect opening for him to say the right thing, and it was the right time to do so as well.

He set the glass down, scratched the back of his head. "Since you came back into my life…" he started, and he knew his eyes were boring into her. "I've had this _feeling_ , where every time I see you—my heart _aches_. And after some thought on it, I realized I missed you, that I _needed_ you. Hence what happened at camp a month ago." He thought he was doing alright.

"So what's wrong?" she asked him, and she looked on the verge of walking out for some reason. He wasn't so sure why he really thought he was doing great.

He tried smiling apologetically, even though he had nothing to apologize for. He sat on the edge of his seat. "When I woke up that morning," he started, then stopped himself because this was _not_ a great way of starting the evening, but he needed to get _this_ out, for this evening to be legit. "And I saw you…I was mad at myself, because of having done it. And all that kept going through my head was _you just slept with the woman that has made you miserable for the past four years_ — I don't want to put this on you," he quickly added, seeing her expression. "I just want to get this out of the way. I promise it's not so bad."

"Well, it's not sounding so great either—"

"I know," he said, interrupting quickly, "And I'm sorry for being so blunt…I thought that, and that's why I left, why I didn't even see you until today. I was trying to figure out how I felt about that, what I wanted to do about it amongst other things."

"I thought you forgave me," she said, and he hated the way she said it. It was like stealing candy from a child, the expression she gave him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, he had to think this through because right now, he was rushing it. Before he could, the waiter brought on the appetizers and set them on the table. They didn't say anything until he was gone, and they didn't touch anything yet.

"I did forgive you," he told her. "I think that deep down I forgave you the day at the compound, I just didn't want to admit that to myself. I think that morning was a wake-up call that told me that I wasn't over it, though, and that's why I left. But it wasn't _you_ specifically, I had nothing wrong with you, it was just _me_ trying to deal with some things." She simply looked at him, waiting because she knew he wasn't done. "I figured, there has always been a part of me that has wanted — _needed_ — you, but the other part of me is telling me to not even think about it. So, I found a compromise, we go slow, we get to know each other again, and we do that…by going out on dates, by working together and spending time together. Like normal people would. If that's okay with you."

She smiled, and his heart started beating again, making him realize it had stopped as well as, his breathing, god it had felt like he had been suffocating. "I would love that."

He picked up his fork and dug into the first piece of food he found on the small plates. "Great," he said as he started chewing. "Because I've given this some thought too, and we're not the same people we were when we initially got together. As much as I hate to admit it, we've changed. Hopefully for the better."

She started eating too. "You surely have," she told him after her first piece. "You back then would not have put _some thought_ on anything that came out of your mouth. I think that's an improvement."

He stopped mid-bite. "Really? I thought the reason you fell for me in the first place was _because_ of that."

She laughed and it was that sound that he realized, made pride bloom in him and joy and happiness amongst other things. He loved her laugh. "No," she said. "I fell for you because you were brave, loyal, loving, trustworthy and you stood by me no matter what. You were also pretty cute."

He grinned, this was exactly what he had had in mind when he had thought of the dinner when he had asked her out and boy was he different than that awkward self he had been. "I'm happy to know you thought I was cute. So…onto more serious things, I gotta ask what your favorite color is?"

She chuckled, took a sip from the red wine in her glass. "That's a deep question," she said. "You sure you want to go that deep this fast?" the sarcasm rolled off her in waves, it enchanted him. When he didn't say anything, showing her he really meant the question she said, "Well there was this boy I knew, his eyes were the color of the sea. I'm going to go with that. What about you?"

He looked at her, and gods above his expression was fond for who he was seeing. "I'd be lying if it still wasn't blue," he told her. "It reminds me of my mother and that sort of makes it the best color out there for me. I'll let you in on a secret, I had my room at the compound painted blue, just the shade she used to make the pancakes in."

"That's sweet," she said in reply. She took another piece of food. Chewed it down. Then, "So tell me. How did you end up being an Avenger?" He was drinking then, and almost choked on it. He set the glass quickly down, looked around himself to see if anyone had heard, not that it was any of their business if they had, but he had managed to keep his identity a secret so far, he wasn't going to take any chances.

That meant he wouldn't explain it in detail, not in a restaurant. "I got myself into a situation," he said, trying to keep it to the minimum. "They found me, and actually recruited me into this government agency. SHIELD, you might have heard of it over the years."

She nodded along. "I heard it went down two years ago."

He took a sip. "Yeah, I was part of that. But anyways, the Director also told me that my skillset could be an asset to the team, so…when they needed me, I was there."

She seemed impressed. "That's a life turnover," she said, and there was a tint of _jealousy_ in it. "I admire how you managed to be one right under the gods' noses. For years. It's impressive."

"Well, I had help," he said. "The salary they gave me, boy it set me up. And I mean for good. Right now I've got more money than I know how to spend. I've got an apartment in Manhattan, and about every single gadget I'd care to have. Tony made this suit which sort of hides my face, and I had SHIELD make a fake identity for when I worked there. No one save a few knew my real name. I slowly built myself up again."

The waiter came to get the empty plates away. "I'm glad you did," she said, and he knew she meant it full heartedly. She cared for him as he did for her. He doubted that was ever going to change, no matter how much each of them had changed individually. "After they started hunting you down…I sort of lived on a limb. And after they came back saying you were dead, I was _distraught_. But then one day Nico came up to me and told me his father had denied him access to speak to you, told me something was not right. From then on I knew you were alive, and I searched and searched. Gods you have no idea."

"You shouldn't have had to," he said. He hesitated for a moment, unsure whether he wanted to tell this next thing. "I kept contact with my sister," he said at last. "I visit her, I call her. She's known I was alive after a month of my presumed death. If we hadn't broken things off the way we had, I would have gotten in contact with you." He regretted those words the moment they were out of his mouth. "But let's not dwell on the past, those are dark times. What about happy times?"

She tried smiling, but he saw through it. He had hurt her with those words. "Well I know you might not care," she started, trying to elevate the situation. "But Piper and Jason had a child, she's five, and Charlie _loves_ playing with her, I'm not even joking." He tried not to flinch at that, because it was _Jason's_ child, and he hadn't left with the demigod at exactly the best terms. Annabeth either didn't see it or ignored it, because she carried on. "Then Piper and Leo had a son, who's six and an older daughter, she's eleven."

He chuckled, he remembered the daughter and the son too actually from the short months he had spent at camp after everything. He found it ironic almost, that Leo had been the first to have kids. With Calypso nonetheless. He was no one to judge. He was also aware, that Frank and Hazel had had a daughter who —if his math was correct— was currently either eight or nine.

"That's nice," he said. He couldn't in return tell her how Tony was having a kid too, because he wasn't, or how Steve had managed to find someone because he hadn't. He could tell about Clint's family, but it wasn't his story to tell, so he wouldn't because it was none of his business. Time passed, and their food came, and then he voiced what he had been thinking since the beginning of their dinner. "There's something I need to tell you." Something he hadn't told his father, or any of the remaining Avengers.

"You're scaring me," she said with worry as she took her first bite. "Is everything all right?"

"I saw Tartarus," he dead panned, holding his fork stiffly in his hand. Before she could say anything he continued. "Well technically I didn't _see_ him, I was dreaming. But he was there, and it felt so real, and my fear was _real_ , and I know he was there. In my head. And I haven't told anyone else and it happened a month ago."

"What did he say?" she asked him, and she was dead serious when she did, and her words filled with worry. " _What did he say_?" she urged, and there was no way in hell he could tell her that he hadn't said anything because she knew he had. And this something had scarred him, he wouldn't deny that.

He hesitated for a moment. "He said he was extending an olive branch," he told her solemnly. " _An offer of peace before any blood is shed_ ," he recited from what he remembered of what Tartarus said. "That I hand myself over to him, help him gain world domination, and he wouldn't kill anyone I cared about."

"What did you tell him?"

He shrugged, although a chill crept up his spine as he remembered that eventful _dream_. "Nothing," he said sincerely. "He was gone before I could."

"Don't take it," she told him and she looked close to jumping out of her seat to tell him that inches away from his face. "Whatever you do, don't you dare take that deal, understand me?" And there was _overprotective_ Annabeth.

 _If only she had been there when you had needed her_ , that part of his brain he had silenced earlier in the evening spoke out in his head.

 _Shut up_ , he told it, not wanting to get into that right now, he had other more pressing thoughts in his mind at the moment, and one was that Annabeth was speaking and he was not listening.

"…e's gonna go back on it, I bet it," she was saying. "He's just trying to bait you in, then find a loophole in what he said and he's gonna stab you in the back and use _them_ to get to _you_. You're not thinking of taking it, are you?" she asked him when she saw his stoic expression. When he hesitated she added, "Are you?"

"Annabeth—" he tried, but she cut him off before he could even say her full name.

She was glaring at him, and he had forgotten how much of an effect _that_ had. "Tell me you're not thinking about it, or I swear to Hades I will chain you up in my basement and won't let you out even if the world is on fire."

He had no doubt she'd do exactly that. "Fine," he said. "I won't take his deal." He felt guilty immediately after saying it. There was no way on earth that he was going to be able to make sure of that. What if _she_ was in danger, and the only way to save her was that. What if him turning himself over could be a turning point for all of them to have a shot at this? He wasn't going to allow himself to be an opportunity of victory and not take it.

"Promise me," she said, and he stared at her, feeling bad about it. " _Swear it_ , you won't take the deal," she pressed.

He couldn't do that and he wasn't going to, even though he knew it could ruin this night out and he had been wishing and hoping for weeks now. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again he said, "I can't promise that." A pause. "But I can promise you, I won't unless direly necessary."

She looked upset, and she stared right through him. She sighed, and she could hear the exasperation in it. He wished it weren't so. "Fine," she said, and it was then that he wanted to tell her all about the first part of his dream, where he had seen hundreds of dead, and her amongst it. That _that_ was the reason why he couldn't make that promise if she was going to die, he knew Tartarus would have the power to bring her back, at that point, there wouldn't even be hesitation on his part.

He tried easing the tension. "Maybe I haven't changed that much after all," he said, and he knew she understood what he meant when she chuckled. He meant his loyalty. It was unwavering towards those he loved as it had always been.

"No, you haven't," she agreed and that was that luckily for him.

They continued eating their firsts and started talking about the small things in life that they had enjoyed in the past years. He told her about life working as an agent for SHIELD, the way he had raised through their ranks like no one ever had. The spectacular missions he undertook, as well as the first day and time he had worked alongside Captain America, gotten to know the man.

He told her that from the whole team, to which he was formally admitted in when Tony released the super bot, Natasha and Clint were the ones he had gotten closest to. To who he had actually told about his past, and what he had once been, some of what he'd been through. Then about Sokovia, and she listened without asking questions when he briefly explained the twins to her, and then what had happened, why they ended up blowing up a whole city.

Then finally he told her about this new life of his all tumbling down when that demigod had blown up the restaurant all those months ago. Explained a bit about the Civil War that the Avengers had gone through, told her about the main reason Steve was gone, which was James Barnes.

In return, she told him about the camp, how it developed in the past four years. What was new. Things he hadn't been able to grasp in the short months that he had been there. There was a portal apparently, somewhere in New Athens, that transported the passenger to New Rome all the way in California.

She told him about Charlie mostly, how he was when he was an infant, barely able to keep his eyes open. At what age he started to crawl, and then when he started to walk. His first words, which had been _mama_. She told him about the first time the child had met Kylie, who was Jason and Piper's daughter. When he started to form actual sentences, his favorite color, his favorite food, drink. What he did during the days and Percy found himself hypnotized to her talking about him.

This was his child.

When she asked him, whether he was going to be the father the child needed, Percy told her where he stood. His plan. That first he and she would need to figure it out, and once that was done, then he'd start figuring it out with the child as well, but that for the moment he needed time. "First _us_ , then the child," he had said and he had meant it. Until he and Annabeth knew what they were, and had it figured out, it was better he stayed away.

After their dinner, he drove them to Long Island Sound, parked the car near the camp and then they walked to the beach, not inside camp, but right outside. They walked on the beach, then sat down on the cool sand under the night and starry sky. It was full winter then, and they probably shouldn't have, knowing where it could lead, but he didn't care where it led.

He knew he could control just when enough was probably enough.

He had brought his coat from the car, and when a particularly strong string of wind passed them and hit them, upon complaint he wrapped it around her, and himself, so they were huddled on one another. He probably should have had the good sense to call it a night and start heading back, but the crashing waves on sand kept him there, as well as her presence beside his.

It was well after midnight and they got closer and closer and eventually, they stopped talking, and he knew where it was heading but he didn't care to stop it. They shared a kiss. A quick almost stolen kiss, and then let go, but they didn't move out of each other's reach. Their foreheads touched, and their lips brushed on one another's and then they were simply breathing each other in and _he_ went back to her.

 _He_ kissed her again, not the other way around, but found absolutely no resistance, instead found her willing and ready to get back at it. His hand was on her cheek and she was arching her back down, leaning on the sand with it, and he was going down with her. He had no intention of stopping even though his brain was telling him to use his head not his heart. This wasn't _right_.

Yet it was the _rightest_ thing in the whole universe.

Yet it wasn't what he had intended to do when he set out.

And yet, _he_ _didn't care_.

So they had sex on the beach.

No protection. No nothing whatsoever.

And if someone saw them, then that'd be that, he sure as hell wasn't sorry about being with such a woman.

It was quick, and once they finished they finished. They lay sprawled on the sand for some time, his coat draped over them both, and once the cold got _too_ cold, then they decided it was a good idea to get dressed and leave. Well, she thought it was a good idea, but he…damn it this was _not_ what he meant with they needed to go slow. But he grabbed her, when they were still nude, and threw them both into the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

She yelled at him but then there was no more sand on them, and then it was fun, even though it was extremely late by then and they were both dead tired and probably still a little drunk from all the wine. But he didn't care because for once in two decades, things were okay and he was okay, and he was having fun. He was truly enjoying himself. He was _himself_.

Even though the end of the world loomed over them.

He quickly found himself realizing, he _couldn't_ go slow, no matter how hard he tried.

He found himself telling himself that he wouldn't be able to follow that, that it was a boundary there only to hurt him. Then the other part of him was telling him that she hurt him, and he was yelling back that he didn't care, not anymore. A month had been enough, _four years_ had been enough to get over it. Enough was enough and if that _dream_ was going to become reality…then they were on _borrowed time_ and he wasn't going to waste it for something that happened half a decade before.

He was going to cherish every single second he had until Tartarus truly arrived, until what they had to face came upon them. He wasn't going to waste any more time than he had.

Eventually, they ended up back at the car, near the entrance of Camp, and she was telling him, "Come on, sleep the night. You can wake up and be gone before I do, just like last time. Then we can ignore each other for the next month to come." She chuckled, tiredly. She was definitely on the verge of dropping, he should at least accompany her to her house, he thought. He knew he was not going to resist going in if he did.

This he could pull out of. He too needed to go home, he had things to do as well. "Maybe next time," he told her, letting go of her hand as she moved towards camp.

She hugged herself as the chill crept back up. He _had_ dried them off afterward, but it was the end of February and it was still cold as hell. "So there _will_ be a next time."

He laughed, but he too was getting tired, and he still had to drive all the way upstate to the compound if he wanted to have the least bit of dignity when next facing Tony. He sure as hell was never going to hear the end of it. There would be an interrogation, and he quickly was going to find out they'd had sex, where, Percy was hell-bent on not revealing though.

"Yes, there will be," he promised her, and that was that.

She gave him a look that said, ' _You better not be kidding_ ', and then turned away, and started walking back to camp. He watched after her until she became another silhouette in the dark, and that's when it all came crashing down on him.

He was so screwed.

.

 **I actually honestly loved writing this bit here.**

 **I think it was sweet. It showed some -albeit terrible- character development, like his obsession with her, is finally done. It's over, whatever happened happened and, this line:** _borrowed time,_ **this is a tribute to my dear new and old book obsession called Throne of Glass, or more like, Kingdom of Ash.**

 **I swear the Percy Jackson fandom is so dead...it was nice when it was at its peak. Now it's...gone, for the most part. But, I will keep on posting this fanfiction until it is dead too. Or I am. Or it is done. Whichever comes first.**

 **I cared and I still care about this, It's like my baby.**

 **Hope you all enjoy your Christmas and new year.**

 **Hunter**


	30. Trust Issues

**Happy New Year, although it has been a while now.**

 **Life is busier than I thought it would be and I have to make very important choices soon so, yeah...**

 **Enjoy.**

 **.**

 **X-X-Confidunt Exibitibus-X-X**

( _Trust Issues_ )

-.-.-

15th June

-.-.-

Things fixed themselves, slowly.

He knew that was an illusion as every that passed, the impending threat that was Tartarus grew. Yet he, as a living member of the Avengers, didn't hear anything from the primordial for the next four months. Actually, he still didn't hear anything from the primordial, but it seemed that the demigods decided to share something they'd had for a while now. A change of heart, which, in all honesty, set barriers.

Those four months were spent in bliss, for him at least. He reconciled with Annabeth, and…boy did he feel good about that. About being able to see her, go to her, she to him, and it being a normal thing. Tony got used to having her around at the compound, as much as he got used to Percy sleeping away from the compound as well. Vision didn't seem to be having any problems with it, at all.

It was great times.

Sure they had changed, but nothing about that change, made him change his mind about her, or hers about him. So they grew and they grew, and eventually, he also made his way into the child's life. Three months now, that he had been integrated into his life, and Percy was being called ' _papa_ '. The first time it had happened, he'd almost gotten a heart attack. From there, things worked out better, smoother.

Things were good.

Tony had presumably fixed things with Pepper. It had never been addressed but the CEO of Stark Industries made herself more seen in the compound, and usually on the hunt for Tony, and if not that, then she was leaving _from_ Tony, looking exasperated. Percy could only guess that they had fixed things between one another and that everything was good for them too.

Rhodey was walking again, and Tony was super proud of that because it was his technical braces that were making it so. It was a bit slow, and running was out of the question, but he could walk, stand on his own and do his own things, which was more than the average paralyzed person could do. Tony had literally saved his life, and sometimes, Rhodey would even step into the suit and use it, with Tony closely behind.

Vision, he didn't hear much from. The super-bot was his own enigma. He worked more than fine on his own, and it seemed that that was his preferred state. On some occasions, when Percy would actually be searching for him, he didn't find him, which was weird and sketchy, but the man — _machine?_ — had the rights to do what he pleased with the free time they were leisurely getting. Like he and Tony were after.

Percy thought about which other Avenger actually remained, and came up with only one more name. Spider-man, even though he wasn't technically an Avenger, _yet_. Tony said he was way too young and he couldn't be responsible if something happened. Saying it would be on him and with everything happening, he couldn't handle it. Percy had nothing against that, but…if the person could be a real asset to the team, maybe they should at least _think_ about it.

Clint, boy that man was in a messy situation. Well, actually he was better off than the others who had _broken the law_ and gone against the Accords. He along with Scott had returned to the United States after Steve broke them out. About two months after that, and handed themselves in. Tony had helped them, he'd pulled some strings and in return, instead of ending up back at the raft, they got house arrest, for two years.

Which meant it counted _them_ out of the game for the fight, whenever that game.

No word from Steve, or Sam, or Wanda, or even Natasha. Radio silent. He knew that it wouldn't be the same for them if _they_ came back. Steve was a lost cause, he would never get house arrest, and he doubted he'd even want that, and Sam was on his same level. Wanda, it would be a miracle if they didn't put a bullet in her head as soon as they had her in sight. Something they would do to him if they found out he had freakish powers. And Natasha…she had signed the Accords but broken her hand on it. Things were tricky for her, but if she came back, there would be safeguards. She would be safe, but she _didn't_ come back.

She remained an outlaw and Percy hated her for it.

For leaving him.

But that wasn't the main problem he had at hand. No, Annabeth had called him earlier in the morning and told him that they were coming for a meeting and that there was something very important that they needed to know. Something they'd been _theorizing_ for months now, and they thought it now a good time to share it with them.

What he wasn't expecting was to find _Nico_ of all people coming to the compound, accompanied by Reyna, and Annabeth. A trio he once might have never imagined ever working together. But after the Giant War, then maybe although Reyna and Annabeth…they must have figured out their indifference and put it aside for what was best for the people they led.

A power couple in other words.

He was already in a meeting room as was Vision. He wore a t-shirt which might have been a little sweaty from his work out bare minutes ago —the call _had_ been sudden and unexpected— along with sports shorts. His hair was wet, and he didn't care enough about this meeting to will it dry, especially since it was sweat wet. Vision, on the other hand, was undoubtedly more presentable, wearing a buttoned up shirt along with smart pants. His usual attire, except his skin, was red but that didn't matter.

The three demigods got to the conference room before Tony did. Which was something, even for Tony. Percy had the suspicion that him working all those extra hours in the lab hadn't all to do with the weapons he was building, but a more personal idea, gain maybe. He wasn't sure, and might, maybe inquire Tony about it if it bothered him enough for him to ask.

Reyna wasn't wearing her praetorial cloak, which was great, because he had no idea how she could manage to explain that. Plus, it looked silly when he was in gym clothes. Instead, she wore her purple Camp Jupiter shirt, along with denim jeans, Annabeth similar to her, only with the orange t-shirt instead. Nico…

It was as he set his eyes upon him that he realized how long it had been since he had had an actual conversation with the son of Hades. That for the past five months or so, he hadn't once sat in the same room and discussed anything with him. He hadn't once exchanged a glance with him, much less a word. It was almost like the son of Hades was as mad at him, as he had been at him.

He was surprised to see the orange shirt underneath an aviator's jacket, as well as he was confused by the short hair and the ring pierced in his earlobe. What remained the same though, were his eyes, dark pools of black. Not brown, but solid black like obsidian. He held a long bag, almost like the bags used to hold skis, on his back. Which he set down beside him when they entered the room.

His relationship with both Reyna and Nico wasn't the best, he wasn't going to lie. It might bring forth some problems, but he wasn't going to start them. He knew though, that if they so much as went in one of the dooming directions, he wasn't going to be the one to stop them, heck he was going to push them down. They had _betrayed_ him as much as the next demigod. He didn't _trust_ them like he didn't trust anyone in that camp apart from Annabeth —and even her…he was working on it.

They sure as hell weren't friends.

But this was better than sending Jason and Frank —seeing how well that had ended up.

Annabeth was by far his favorite person in the room, and he showed that, by standing up to greet her. After all, he doubted they were going to start anything without Tony being present. So he had no shame walking up to her and pecking her on the lips. Grabbing her hand as he leaned on the edge of the table. She had a bag on her shoulders, and he could only guess what that held.

Reyna looked around the room. "Where is Stark?" she questioned, and it might have been directed at him like it might have been directed at Vision like it might be directed at Annabeth or Nico.

He didn't want to see the ungrateful asshole by completely ignoring her. He actually wanted this _alliance_ to work and if he was the middle piece then he was not going to act out. "He'll be here in a few minutes," he told her and caught the way her eyes snapped towards him when he spoke. She too didn't like him half as much as he liked her.

It was great.

Reyna continued looking pissed and when Vision invited them to sit down, none of them did. Eventually, a minute passed in silence, and then another. It was more than five solid minutes when finally Tony appeared, looking disheveled almost a bit confused about what was happening. The shirt he wore held dark patches of oil, and he was rubbing his hands on a cloth, cleaning them from the same type of oil.

"Oh don't stop on my account," he asked out loud as he walked over to one of the chairs and sat down into one with leisure. He didn't look like a man who had just kept five others waiting, on the other hand, he looked amused.

That's when Nico stepped forward with the big and weirdly shaped bag and then opened its contents on the sleek glass table. Not being gentle in his movements at all. He stepped off the lean on the table as _sharp blades_ emerged from the sack. He looked over them, noting what they were.

There were six in total. One was a black iron staff which he seemed to remember but the memory was so old he couldn't pinpoint where he had seen it. Then there were three spears, one looking similar to the next. A sledgehammer which he had some inkling Leo had had something to do with it, but what caught his attention was the drakon bone lance at the bottom of the pile.

He pushed the other weapons aside, just to pick it up and feel it in his hands. Power rumbled beneath his fingertips as he touched it. As the Giant weapon fit into his hands as his own sword did. He might have looked concerned because Tony was looking at him that way, as was Annabeth. "Where'd you get this?" he asked, turning to Nico because he had been the one to put them on the table.

It was Annabeth who answered though. "Damasen gave it to Frank about seven months ago. They were on their way back from your cabin in Alaska when they got ambushed by a flock of monsters. Damasen saved them, gave them the lance and told them that _he must wield it_ because he's the son of his bane."

Percy needed to wrap his mind around that. There were a lot of things she had just said that he needed to wrap his head around. But it was Tony who voiced the first of them. "Okay, what?" he asked, and he sure as hell seemed to be handling what had just been discussed worse than he was himself. "I'm going to guess _Damasen_ is one of the Giants you've been talking about, but why would he give you his weapon. And are all these…?" he left the question hanging.

Annabeth looked sidelong at Reyna and then at Nico as well. They both gave minute nods towards her without saying a word. "These weapons belong to other Giants," she started off. "Alcyoneus, Otis, Ephialtes, Mimas and Hippolytus," she said pointing at the black iron staff, the two spears, the sledgehammer, and the third spear respectively.

"But why did he give them to you?" Tony asked, and it probably sounded arrogant, but he had nothing to be apologizing for. They were circling around the main questions he had initially asked, deciding to answer the easiest with as little background information as they managed. He might have a thing with Annabeth, but it didn't mean he wasn't getting irritated as the seconds prolonged.

Annabeth looked at Percy, and for a moment there, he knew what she saying before she said it. Because Damasen had been _good_ when they had met him in Tartarus the first time around. He had helped them. "Damasen is not our enemy," she told him, flickering her eyes between Tony and Vision. "He gave them to us because he's the bane of the god of war, which means he's the opposite. He wants peace, and knows that Tartarus ruling over everything will bring everything but."

They were headed into dangerous territory in talk about where trust was. He was sure both Vision and Tony were on his same line of thought when Tony said it. "And why did we not know of this before?" he asked, and again there was arrogance behind those words, which he did not blame. If this was what he thought he was, then not sharing it might not have been the greatest idea.

Before any of them could reply, he got the chance to ask for confirmation. "Do these _kill_ him?" he asked, and he knew that they did by their reaction. Which was not ideal, he would have much rather that they denied that, and everything would have been better off that way. But they didn't, which put their trust in a very dangerous place. Because seven months was a _long_ time.

Annabeth kept on answering the questions. "After Damasen mentioned that we would need the other eleven to have a chance against Tartarus, I looked into it. I believe —with supporting evidence— that if all twelve weapons from the children of Tartarus are used against him, then yes. They kill him."

"It would make sense," Vision spoke up, and Percy turned towards him. "The weapons weld by these… _Giants_ were formed by the pit itself. The pit, of course, meaning Tartarus. They come from the physical representation of the primordial at hand. These weapons, are a _part_ of Tartarus, which would make sense if they are also _objects_ which can be used against him."

Percy didn't understand a thing he said but nodded along with it. Everyone seemed on that same page. Tony wasn't satisfied though. "Here's what I don't understand," he said as he stopped rocking in the chair. "You've known about this for, what… six— _seven_ months. Why didn't you tell us?" He dropped the elephant in the room. A question that had been boring into him since the beginning.

 _Why didn't they tell us?_

"Call it trust issues," Nico said, speaking up, and everyone whipped their eyes to him. Annabeth looked like he had just dropped a bomb, which in some nonliteral way, he definitely had. He didn't seem to be affected by the glares that went his way, or the look of disbelief in what he had just said. Simply shrugged it off.

Tony actually stood up, casting for Vision to look up to him in what Percy recognized was worry of how his reaction might cause more damage than good. Percy was on the same page. "Trust issues," he echoed and it was just clear that _he_ was the ticking time bomb in the room. He leaned on the table with one hand, the other gestured at them all. "I don't like _this_ as much as anyone in this room, right now," he said and by _this_ , he meant the alliance. "Trust issues, though? That's funny. What do you think we'll have in your regards from now on. Knowing you kept a Tartarus-killing-weapon away from us. I mean were you ever meant to even ever tell us? Or were you just going to spring it up at one random moment."

"We wanted to tell you," Reyna said, stepping up and it was then that Percy knew things had just gotten real. "The first one we got, it was right after he went away," she pointed at Percy without giving it much thought. "Then the others, you were in a _Civil War_. Your team _broke up_. Would you, _Mr. Stark_ , have sprung this on you then?"

"It's been five months," Percy said, knowing Tony might not say it. "Plus we're not children, we could have handled it then just like we could have handled it today if it didn't come like _this_." He didn't want to fight with them, he really didn't. That will had long since left his mind. He wasn't like that anymore, his anger towards them all had dissipated, leaving behind only the sting of betrayal and regret.

He didn't want to fight, and if they stood up for their mistakes, then everything would be just better for everyone. "It was wrong," Annabeth said, and Percy was proud of her because she'd just stomped on her hubris to say those words. "I admit that. But we're here now, and you know _now_. No point in dwelling what it could have been. It's done, so you going to hear us out or continue acting like children?"

Percy found a grin forming on his lips. _There she was_. He continued grinning when he turned to look at Tony who looked shook by her way of talking, or at Vision, who simply sat there, his fingertips touching in front of him. He took a seat next to them. He had the ingrowing feeling that whatever this was he might want to take it sitting. Not that so far it wasn't mind-blowing.

"Do tell," Tony said, waving his hand as he leaned back on his chair, spinning sideways a bit. His eyes focused on the Giant weapons on the table.

Annabeth also took a seat, and Nico sat next to her. Reyna remained standing as she started speaking, "We believe it would a good idea to split the use of the weapons down a line. We keep seven, you have the other five." She was looking at Tony as she spoke. Evidently marking him as the one she needed to have the attention of.

Tony stood, paced a little, and he had an idea what troubled him. Tony faced the out looking glass, giving them his back for a moment, then he turned and said, "There's only a slight problem with that." She didn't guess, simply looked at him expectantly. "We're short-handed," he said regretfully, his hands in his pocket. "I don't know if you've noticed, the Avengers are toast. There's me, Vision, Percy…Maybe Rhodes, who I'm not gonna ask to come back in…This makes four of us."

"You have contact with them, though," Nico said, as he too leaned back on the comfortable chair, clasping his hands over his stomach. "You can call them, get in touch and tell them to get their shit together. Since the fate of the world depends on it. _But no pressure_."

Tony again looked shook, because… _what?_ The kid had nerve, except he wasn't a kid, and Tony probably didn't even know that. Annabeth spoke before he could respond to it. "What about Banner? Or Thor? They could help out, no?" At least she was _trying_ to help, unlike Nico.

"No one's heard of them for a year now," Percy told her, and that caught all of their attention. "They all left after what happened in Sokovia. They haven't been in contact since. They could be halfway across the universe for all we know." Then it struck him, he turned to Tony. "What about that guy you… _recruited_ …what is he… _Spider-Man_?"

Tony didn't hesitate. "Nope, that's out of the question," he said immediately in that tone that would usually leave people not questioning. "I'm not bringing him into this."

This wasn't usually, and he was Percy Jackson, he was born to question. "Why not?" he asked annoyed. "Tony you brought him into this when you asked him to fight with you at Leipzig. I mean you surely thought he _could_ handle it when you brought him in there to fight _Steve_ and _Wanda_!" He didn't miss the way that Vision twitched at hearing her name…there was definitely something going on there.

Which was none of his business.

Something like anger crossed Tony's eyes. He raised a finger. "First of all," he started, "He didn't get into contact with Wanda once. And second, it was a friendly match, if Cap wanted to lay him out he would have. And third, I'm pretty sure that this _Tartarus_ guy is on another level from Cap _or_ Wanda. I'm not bringing him into this. He's a _kid_."

"Fine," he said, and that's where he realized his own blood was boiling with some unconfined anger. Had been for a while. He was angry at Tony, he was angry at Steve, he was angry at _all of them_ for making a mess of an already messy situation. "I'm going to call Steve then," he dropped it like a bomb. "I'm going to find a way to call him and get him to come back for this. Because you might have a problem with him, but I don't and I won't let your little feud lose us this."

Tony looked betrayed, almost scared like he was so close to calling his suit to him and attacking him. Something that they seriously _didn't_ need. Not right now. They had to be united. Which was a slap on the back since he had just told him he was going to do the thing he hadn't wanted to do for five months now. Enough was enough.

He could understand Tony was angry at Steve. Steve shouldn't have kept the details of his father's death to himself. But Tony needed to understand when his own needs didn't outweigh _this_ need. That them all fighting together was a _tad_ more important than whatever had gone through in that bunker in Siberia. They needed Steve, and he knew even Tony understood that.

So screw it.

He turned to the demigods. "I'm going to need some drachmas," he told them before he could rethink it. If he didn't have access to the burner phone Steve had sent, then he would do it another way, even if that was the way of demigods. He would call on a goddess and ask her help. He would go back to being _that_ for the sake of it.

Annabeth reached in her bag, then slid him five of the golden coins on the table's surface. He caught them before they ended up on the floor. "We were thinking," she started then. "That you guys would get Polybotes', Otis', Ephialtes', Hippolytus' and Thoon's." She grabbed the three spears from the bag, and set them out of it, on the table. "How you split them is up to you. What we're doing with the rest of them, is assigning a demigod to the weapon of their parent's bane."

"So for example," Nico said as he stood and picked up the black iron staff. "Alcyoneus is the bane of Hades. So I'm in charge of this. Annabeth would have Enceladus'. Jason Porphyrion's. Thalia Orion's. Frank Damasen's. Leo Mimas'. Hazel Clytius' and Piper Periboia's. So Percy," first time in forever that Nico addressed him. "You'd hold Polybotes'"

 _The seven_ , plus Thalia and Nico, in other words.

Percy swung around in the chair, to look at both Tony and Vision, see if they had anything to say with it. When they didn't he took it upon himself. "So a trident…and a net," he said and it sounded ridiculous on his own lips. A memory of being trapped under a net at the bottom of the sea came to surface. The poison to which he had surrendered to. "Right um, what about the poison on those things."

"You'll figure it out once we acquire the weapon," Reyna said stepping up. "We believe, that perhaps it is a good idea for you all to practice with the weapons you assign each other."

"That is indeed a good idea," Vision said.

There was a moment of quiet after that, and it took Percy a moment to look both Nico and Reyna in the eyes. They hadn't apologized to him, and it wasn't looking like they might ever. No one, except Annabeth, had said anything in regard to an apology. He knew he deserved it, as arrogant and cocky as that sounded. He deserved an apology for them turning their backs on him as they had, he'd be damned if he even considered forgiving them before that.

He had no way of knowing whether Annabeth had told them about the bracelet, and if they did, then _they_ had no idea of knowing that his own brother had been wearing on the night he killed him. That fateful and horrible night all those years ago. So perhaps they didn't even know the truth, but they shouldn't have believed the lie in the first goddam place.

They should have stood by him because that's what he'd have done.

Not stand on the other freaking side.

Betray him as they did so.

He didn't tell them about the bracelet during the meeting, because he was a hypocrite.

.

 **Happy life to y'all. And thank you so much for the reviews in the previous chapter, they're a boost.**

 **Hope you all had a wonderful time, and that you enjoyed your holidays.**

 **Hunter**


	31. Iris Message

**Hello and welcome back!**

 **Countdown to Captain Marvel is short, and to Endgame a little longer, and to Far From Home longer still. But hey, it's _coming_ , they're coming and I cannot wait. **

**In the meantime, enjoy this:**

 **.**

 **X-X-Iris Croceis Nuntius-X-X**

( _Iris Message_ )

He excused himself from the meeting before it was over. He was going to contact Steve as soon as he could, and if that gave him an excuse to leave the fucking meeting room, then he was going to take it. He couldn't stand being there with Tony a ticking time bomb, Nico and Reyna barely addressing him and Annabeth and Vision the only ones he could handle at the moment.

So he left before it was over when Tony started talking about weapon distribution. How much he'd got under and how much he still needed to get through with. Stuff he couldn't care less about because the weapons weren't for him since he already had it dubbed apparently. A trident and a net, along with his newly returned sword, and well…his powers.

He walked down the hall, to the nearest bathrooms he could find. Public, that all agents used and he didn't care about that. No, because he was only going to be needing the sink and the water from it. He closed the main door of the bathroom after checking that it was completely empty. Then with some water, he locked it around the handle, locking the door in itself. Water also worked on blurring the cameras in the corners.

If he was going to be contacting Steve, he sure as hell wasn't going to do so in a way that could be traceable, or that would endanger him or his company. So he took the safety measures of making sure he was alone, and that no one would ever see or hear what they were talking about.

He opened the sink, letting the water run. Using his powers, he then moved the water in the direction of the lightbulb, so he could create an ' _artificial_ ' rainbow at eye level. When the rainbow did appear in front of him, he fished out one of the drachmas Annabeth had passed him, and threw it into it, then spoke words he hadn't said for almost two decades now, "O' Iris goddess of the rainbow. Accept my offering. Show me, Steve Rogers, wherever he is."

 _Please_ was missing before _accept my offering_. It was missing and it wasn't due to rusty memory of the words he was supposed to speak. It was voluntarily left out because she was a goddess and he couldn't bring himself to ask so nicely. Asking was already lowering himself enough, if he had to _plead_ her to do it he wasn't going to be able to.

Luckily enough for him, the goddess didn't mind. The mist in front of him shimmered, and then an image appeared out of it and…he didn't know what he had thought Steve was doing, where he might have been, but what he saw…it fit him. Fit his new _title_ , his new purpose.

The room was dark around him, and they were all sitting down at a wooden table. Well most of them anyway. Steve was standing up, looking over it and —he'd be damned— but he saw that he was growing out a stubble on his jaw. Short blonde hair was apparent and it was so _not_ Captain America that he wondered how hard he was taking it. The loss of that name, that title. He wasn't even wearing his suit.

Natasha was sitting down on one of the wooden chairs, at least he _thought_ it was her. It was hard to tell at the moment because red hair was now blonde and cut much shorter. Sam was also sitting down, right next to her, both of them looking up at Steve as he talked. And Wanda…she was sitting down on the floor in the corner of the room, playing with the red magic tendrils in her hand.

They were talking about something, probably had to do with the maps he couldn't see very clearly on the table, but before he could understand a word, Wanda was looking up at him and calling him out, "Percy?" She looked surprised, as did everyone else as they turned around to look at him. Their eyes widening as they set on his image hovering over the ground.

When his eyes met with Natasha, she smiled softly, which he did not return. _She left him_. He wasn't ever going to forget that, about any of them. That they were in a slightly bigger mess that a governmental feud and them leaving was jeopardizing their whole shot at winning this. Their shot at freedom. _His_ shot at his own salvation which he'd been searching for since he got out.

He couldn't bring himself to smile at any of them, except they looked good.

"Where's Barnes?" he asked offhandedly. Not a smart move, Steve cocked his head to the side — _Steve,_ not _Captain America_ — and then took a couple of steps in the direction of the message Iris was displaying to him. He looked concerned, and damn he wanted to take back the question but he wasn't going to. Barnes wasn't there, so where was he? Where was the man that had single-handedly managed —although not voluntarily— to break up the Avengers.

 _They'd been hanging on a thin thread_ if that's all it took.

 _The Accords_ , a voice spoke in his brain. _Not, Barnes_ , the man had no fault in what had happened.

He was just _collateral damage._

Who wasn't _there_ , so _where was he?_

Steve stopped walking just a few steps away. "Who's asking?" he asked, and this wasn't Captain America's voice. No this was Steve Roger's, asking for the well being of the person he had chosen above everything and everyone else. No regrets shown on his hard set features. No regrets for anyone on the other side of the message.

None he could see anyway.

His gaze remained on Natasha for a moment before looking back at Steve — _Steve_ — needing an extra second to remember the line of the conversation. "Just me," he said offhandedly. Then he grinned, although it didn't exactly reach his eyes. "You know, the two of us might have managed to bond over _similar life experiences_ if you hadn't whisked him away so quickly."

Steve wasn't grinning back, he wasn't even smiling or looking the slightest amused by what he was saying. "I don't know what this is," he said, gesturing at him, at the misty message in front of him. "But we've got work to do. So unless this is important, then…" _leave_ … That was _Captain America_ , not _Steve Rogers_. So that meant there was still a spark of the Captain in him. He didn't know whether that could be a good thing or a bad thing. Whether he needed Captain America or Steve.

"It is important," he replied seriously, moving across the point that it needed to be talked about. Then he shrugged, got that smirk back on his lips. "But I also meant it. We could have bonded, after all, it's not so different. Captive over a long period of time, cut off arm, freakishly good at what they do—"

Natasha interrupted, she stood from her wooden chair and walked over to the point she was standing next to Steve and looking at him through the Iris message. "Can you maybe quickly get to the part where you said it's important," she urged him, and it hurt. He had to be honest, it goddam hurt when she said that.

He glared. "Yeah, alright," he said, and all jokes were pushed aside. There'd be none from him. No snarky attitude, no trying to lift the goddam tense mood. Just facts, and what he'd been told. Nothing more. Even though deep down he understood. He told them about the weapons, and about the fact that they were needed to at least wield _some_ of them —he had needed to add two drachmas to the message since they were taking so long. All in all, he made it clear, they needed to come back.

"Right," Steve said. "What's guaranteeing us that Ross won't be waiting there to arrest us the moment we touch down?"

 _Shit, Steve_ , why make everything so goddam complicated when you could just come home. _Home_. "I will start working with Tony, on nullifying the Accords," he said before he could think it through. He had no idea why he'd just said what he'd said, not taking it back though. "We'll work something out. Maybe we can use the mist, make it work somehow, or make it legit. Change them enough that you will come back."

"You signed?" Sam asked him, crossing his arms in front of him. They had sat down at the table, Wanda included, and the message had _floated_ somewhat to them so that he was at the head of the table.

Percy hated that question because his answer separated _him_ from _them_. He hated it because by answering it they had then the right to tell him it was none of his goddam business. Except they were all Avengers, and it _was_. "They don't even know my name, let alone my face," he told them, they knew it though, without him needing to say it. They knew but they just wanted him in that position. And he'd fall onto it if he could make a point of his own as well. "Ross has Tony searching for me like he is for Thor and Banner. Nothing that can be done."

"Then it's easy for you to say," Sam told him, and Percy hoped he hadn't been so fucking obvious about it. Asking the question, _setting the answer and his goddam reply._ He was quickly losing it, his patience. He damn was.

 _Easy for you_ , the words rang in his head, multiple times and if it weren't an Iris Message, then Sam would probably be holding his jaw because Percy would have punched him right in the face at that. He'd been having a shit day to start with, a shit couple of months actually, and now here was Sam, insinuating that it was _easy_ for him.

Cause it damn right was, waking up from a nightmare, only to know you hadn't woken up at all. Seeing all your friends —the people you believed family— all dead around you and hanging on a cross like some execution. It was _easy_ to have to work with the very same beings that had shunned him for something he hadn't done, and _hunted_ him across the country to then _kill_ him and leave him there.

No one came back for a body.

No one except a few people had cared enough to even make sure he was dead. That he made it into the underworld instead of wondering as a hunted soul for the rest of his days.

It was damn _easy_ facing all that.

It was a walk in the park.

And, what made it even easier…was that the very threat that was looming over them was the very same being that had tormented his waking and sleeping hours for fourteen years, the same being who had haunted him every single day once they'd gotten out, who was still tormenting him by simply allowing for him to be alive and breathing and _there_.

He had it fucking easy.

He blinked the anger away. Sam didn't know what he was saying. _He didn't_. But he did because he'd been _there_ when he'd told them all. He was there and he knew and so he knew what he was saying. Then it was probably the thought haunting him that he was a fugitive that made his head roll a little, that made him unaware of what he was saying because Sam was kind and those weren't his words.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that," he said, taking a page out of Tony's book of speech and how to handle tricky situations. "We're going to find a way, and you're going to come," he deadpanned, leaving absolutely no room for discussion. None of them objected. "Because we need you. Like the old man once said, if we are going to win this, we'll do it _together_. Sure as hell not if we're divided. _United we stand_ —"

" _Divided we fall_ ," Steve finished for him, and Percy was sort of glad he did. It showed that he understood what he was getting at. The bigger picture. It didn't matter if they broke the law if they didn't stand together, there wasn't going to be enough people alive to enforce that law.

Wanda wasn't sold, she never was on these things. It was moments like these that he realized how everything that had happened in the past year had actually _forced_ her to grow up. Much like him. She'd been thrust into a war as a child, she had felt loss, and in the end, came out another person. They all did. They all _always_ did. "What about Stark?" she asked, and it was weird to hear how subtle her accent had become. Different again. Changed.

 _They had all grown up_.

 _Too fast_.

 _They were just kids_.

Stark was going to be a problem in all honesty. "I don't know," he said truthfully because he really didn't. "If it were for Tony I wouldn't even be making this call right now. But it's not up to his likes like it's not up to yours or mine. This is greater than us and it doesn't matter who we're good with or not. We need to stand together, and he will understand."

Steve ran a hand over his short beard, scratching at his jaw. He wasn't convinced at all. "We fell out hard," he said, and he didn't mean the airport. He meant Siberia where Tony found out about his parents, blew off Barnes's arm, then Steve beat the living hell out of him, and Tony demanded he leave the shield. He meant the fight where Steve had made it clear that Tony wasn't Bucky, and he would never be as important as him.

"I know you did," he said. He along with Vision and Rhodey had searched for camera footage that displayed what it was that occurred, the blows they delivered to one another. They'd obviously asked for Tony's consent before snooping in on it, to which he hadn't bothered to do more than a nod. "I saw the footage. But I don't care." He wanted to make it clear, that what happened between them three in Siberia was their own damn business, he wasn't going to stick his nose in it.

Even though he really badly wanted to.

"I don't believe Stark would work on getting me back there," Steve continued.

"Then you don't know him very well if that's what you truly believe," he bit back and he meant the bitterness in his tone. That he did. It might not have been his business why they had fought, what had gone on, but it was his business that Tony had been a living ghost for the next couple of weeks. That was his problem because Tony had been a problem.

Steve shook his head, he was going to say no, wasn't he? He looked at Sam, Wanda, and Natasha, seeing that they might be considering it, but if Steve said no it was a no for them too. They followed him because he was a leader and he was a good leader. But before that, he knew he was a _good man_. "I can't sign it," he said at last and Percy closed his eyes. "You have to understand, I can't leave him _. Not again_."

 _Him being Barnes, right?_

He opened his eyes at that. Here was Steve, putting that man above everything — _everyone_ — else again. He realized if roles were reversed, and Annabeth was Barnes, he would probably be where Steve was on, so he couldn't blame him. Not when he spoke the last words, _not again_. Because the books said no one had gone searching for a body almost eighty years ago now. No one had looked at the end of that ravine for a life that could have been saved.

Instead, he'd crashed a plane into the ice in hopes of just forgetting the losses.

The guilt.

He could never understand _that_.

He'd watched the tapes, he'd read the files…So… "I'm sorry about what was done to him," he said to Steve. "I'm also sorry for how things panned out for him after Vienna." _The bombing_. The framing. The chase. "Sometimes life isn't really fair."

Steve chuckled. "Yeah, that's an understatement," he said solemnly. "But thank you."

It was a hard choice, a hard call. "What if I come to you?" he said then, easing up a little because damn it had gotten tense and he didn't like it tense. Not so much anyway. "I swear I wouldn't sell you out. Hand you the weapons, then you can train with them, and get ready for the inevitable."

"That could work," Sam was the first to say, and he was glad to hear the positive answer. He probably would have flipped if he had been negative. "I'm sure that when it comes down to it, we'll all find a way to live with each other for enough time to defeat this _sauce of tartar_."

No one disagreed with him.

So they agreed on a meetup point, and a day and a time.

He then tiredly shut down the Iris Message.

-.-

He was walking back towards the meeting room, not at all in hopes that the meeting was still going on, but all in hopes it had already ended, when he turned a corner and found the three demigods walking down the same corridor. They'd been walking in silence, as he hadn't heard them, but that didn't disturb him. No, it was the looks on their faces.

They didn't simply brush past him and continue on their way, which he took as a sign that there was something going on. Words between them that probably needed to be said but weren't still.

So he broke the ice. "The exit is the other way," he told them, trying to be nonchalant, not aggressive or to insinuate anything bad. Just…breaking the ice because it sure as hell was tense around them.

Annabeth smiled only at him, then gave a look to the other two. She walked behind Percy, but Nico and Reyna didn't move at all. Only Nico's step forward, his hands gesturing, palm up as he said, "I— we _both_ want to _apologize_. For everything." Whatever he had thought they wanted to say, this wasn't it. He tried opening his mouth, but no words came out. Nico continued. "We know this is just the first step, and you might never actually forgive us, but this is us stepping up to our wrongs. We wronged you, and we want to apologize."

Reyna nodded her head along to what Nico said. "What Nico's saying is true," she said as a way of agreeing with him. "But I also want to add that we should have never wronged you in the first place. It was wrong, to believe the rumor, it was wrong for us not to stand by your side and fight it. And we can't go back, so the best we _can_ do is apologize. Because we _knew_ you, and we turned our backs on you and we should have never done that. So perhaps, hopefully, one day, we can work together again. When this is over, even, maybe."

He was at a loss of words. Sometimes time was tricky because he had forgotten that one, Nico was probably as old as Steve Rogers, if not more, and second they were both mentally two decades older than their body showed, because _immortality_ , right. That worked. They didn't age, but say a sword stabbed them in the gut they'd die. Like Bianca and Zoë. "Thank you," he said, his voice slightly hoarse, for no reason whatsoever.

He had not expected an _apology_ , not from Nico, and certainly not from Reyna.

Then again, two decades _had_ passed, and he didn't know these people anymore, not like he once did.

Then he coughed a little, clearing his throat, realizing maybe more words from him wouldn't do anyone any bad. "You're actually the only ones, who've…mmh— I mean, after Annabeth. You're the only ones who've actually talked to me about it. Apologized I mean. Thank you." And he meant Every Word of It.

 _Forgive never forget_.

Nico had always held a special place in his heart, he wasn't going to lie. Had been the little brother for some time, that he had never asked for but had never considered as a curse but a blessing. He couldn't be mad at him even if he wanted, because Nico had been _pure_ and it had been his fault he wasn't anymore. His own fault for getting his sister killed when she was so inexperienced, when he had _promised_.

If Nico had been able to forgive him for _that_ , for getting his sister killed —his world at the time— then he sure as hell would be able to forgive him for _this_ …for whatever _this_ even was. Betrayal, selling him out. Not standing by him when they could have. Doing nothing as he was condemned and then shot down the height of Olympus. Yeah…he could forgive that of him.

Annabeth had told him that he had looked for him in the underworld, for her. He had _helped_ her, and she had always been searching for him and he believed that.

And Reyna, she hadn't even been _there_ at the time of the _condemning_. He couldn't even hold that against her. What he could hold against her was that time in the park, all those months ago, where she had threatened his life, and had been —had she?— ready to fight him to keep him there long enough for the gods to arrive. She had not fought him though when he disarmed, she had probably _let_ him do it.

He could forgive her for that, couldn't he…?

Maybe for her, it would take more time but Nico…

He looked at him. "You forgave me when I got your sister killed," he said and didn't miss how Nico's face lit up sadly at the mention. "You tried to kill me but in the end, you saved my life. You gave me the key to defeating Kronos. If you managed to forgive me for that, the least I can do is to _let this go_." He smiled, sheepishly, dipping his head slightly. He turned to Reyna, and he didn't want to sound like a douchebag, that really wasn't his intention. "I get it, and thank you, but…slowly…" he said just as much. "And that one day we get to work together again, I hope that too. Roads to recoveries are long."

She didn't seem upset. She offered him a small smile, almost minute. "I guess that's the best I could have hoped for, anyway. I _did_ threaten you back in November. I get it," she said and he was glad she did. He wouldn't know how to end this conversation otherwise. He didn't know what would have happened if she didn't. How awkward it might have gotten.

It didn't.

Something worse happened.

Nico stepped up to him and did something he would have never imagined. He got on the tips of his toes and swung his arms around his shoulder. Percy dipped his head at that, _what was life_. It was _second chances_ , and the ability to take them. It took him a moment to acknowledge he could move, and he swung his arms around the lower frame of his cousin's back, hearing a soft murmur of, "I missed you, Perce," from Nico next to his ear. His breath hot. Before the son of Hades pulled back.

Reyna stepped up to him too, and he was almost expecting another hug, but she simply smiled and stretched out her hand for him to take. Which he did, and he squeezed gently and almost affectionately, _he could work with this_. He could and he figured he actually wanted to. He had _missed them_. These were good people, the gods weren't, but these were. He gave a soft smile back.

They both then turned around and started walking down the corridor, after all, that was the right direction, they'd come all this way looking for him. He turned to look at Annabeth, who stood behind him.

When he turned she was much closer than she had been when the others had been there as well. She grabbed his cybernetic hand, and then placed her other on top of his heart. She was smiling fondly at him and looking at him with that light in her eyes that made him realize how lucky he was because it was shining because of him.

"You've got such a big heart, Percy," she told him.

He blushed, chuckled slightly as well. Looked down at her hand almost timidly. Then back at her, at her _beautiful face_ into those piercing eyes. A door to the soul, they said. He could agree to that. He could see her pain in them, what they'd been through, but he saw her prevailing through it most of all. He couldn't help the big smile that took over his features, crinkling the skin around his eyes.

She leaned in, and he closed his eyes, and for a moment it was bliss as their lips touched. Then images of death and blood and nothing but _dust_ filled his view and he blinked them open. They all but disappeared as he saw her closed eyelids. Then they broke up apart, and he didn't have anything to say to the kind words she had told him, and she had nothing to add, so she walked away, to reach up to the other two. Their hands touching 'till their fingertips couldn't anymore.

He let go of a long breath he didn't know he was holding.

.

 **The more life goes on the more I realize how utterly terrifying it is.**

 **So very terrifying.**

 **For next year I have to choose six subjects, three at higher level, and three at standard. And I already know that it is going to be very hard and I'm terrified now, even though it starts in like September. And I actually just realized that.**

 **Damn, but there is so much fun and good stuff to look forward to for this end of year. Cool holidays, new movies coming out, new things to experience.**

 **Oh well...**

 **I hope y'all are way less stressed than I am, because I don't wish this level of stress on anyone.**

 **Best**

 **Hunter**


	32. Spider-Man

**Hello back! March is here, which means only one more month to Avengers: Endgame. Who's excited?**

 **Anyways, enjoy this little chapter here:**

 **.**

 **X-X-Aranea-Vir-X-X**

( _Spider-Man_ )

-.-.-

12th October

-.-.-

Tony hadn't told him about selling Stark Tower, and he hadn't known. Not until a kid —presumably _Spider-Man_ had saved the many valuables that had been on a plane on their way to the compound. He'd had a very long, and serious conversation with Tony about it.

He'd asked about what was going in the first place, to which Tony had taken a bottle of scotch and told him everything. From recruiting the kid when he went up against Cap. To everything that came after. The trip he took to India being disturbed by the kid getting into the first big trouble in the months that followed the so-called _Civil War_. Then explained about that ferry accident that had happened in New York with the ferry.

Explained why one day he came home angry and annoyed and didn't say anything about it. He remembered that day, and from what Vision disclosed, his attitude had been crankier than the day the Accords were suggested to them. In his book —even though he hadn't been there for that— he had been cranky enough that it had ruined his mood too. Enough so that he canceled the dinner date he'd had with Annabeth for that night.

Apparently, this man by the name of —he-couldn't-care-to-remember— _Vulture_ , had stolen artifacts from the Battle of New York all those years back and used it to make new and advanced weapons that sort of messed with your head if you started thinking about them for too long. Spider-Man, or _Peter Parker_ as Tony had disclosed, had been the only one around to know it was happening, so of course, having gotten a little bit in over his head after Germany…he took it upon himself to bring this guy down and stop with his business.

Percy respected that. It reminded about how he had once been more than two decades prior to now.

Then Spider-Man had not so voluntarily caused a ferry to split in half, and with it, almost risked the deaths of hundreds in the meantime. To which Tony had gotten mad —reason he was cranky when he came back to the compound— so mad, he took the suit he'd made for him for the _Civil War_ , back. _'If you're nothing without the suit, then you shouldn't have it'_ , Tony had been regretful, but at the same time, knew it was the right thing to do.

If the kid got in danger or got hurt wearing that suit…he knew it would a toll on him.

With all of his need to protect and all of that.

That hadn't stopped the kid from doing what was right. Even though he was missing the amazing suit Tony had built for him, he didn't give up. It was that that left him in awe when Tony had told him. Not the stubbornness, but the fact that he was ready for it. Didn't care about whether he'd be good, he just wanted to help, and help he goddam did.

Percy didn't know about the accident until the day after.

Parker on the other had risked his life getting on a flying plane full of radioactive material that could explode —and eventually, some of it did. Fought a man that was more than twice his age and came out on top. Plus, he _saved_ the man once it came to his death. Saved him and didn't think twice about it. Left him there all webbed up, for the authorities to come and find.

Spider-Man took the credit, not Parker and perhaps that was cool with him.

It always had been for him.

He wasn't expecting it when Friday pulled through a call from Tony while he was in the gym, and heard, "He's coming, I want you to meet him." It was a prerecorded message, and there was nothing for him to do but listen and comply as Tony told him where to be and at what time to be there as well.

-.-

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting when he did get there, but certainly not what he saw.

Happy was there, a man he hadn't seen in what most definitely felt like years, and when he had it had been for no more than a minute each time. Then there was the kid who…looked like he was just out of secondary school and barely into high school. Way to young to be _here_ on business about…what? Being an Avenger? He didn't know for sure whether that was what Tony had in mind…just knew that it was sketchy and who knows.

Both the two of them were facing out the window, watching as a jet took off from the pod into the air and soared away. He heard the small sound of amusement from the kid. _Brown hair_ , _lean muscles_. He took him in from what he could see. _Held himself with confidence_.

They both turned once the jet was just a speck in the distant sky. "Don't see that every day," Happy told the kid, who was smiling like an idiot as he looked at the elder man. His words died a little when he saw Percy. _Happy knew_. "Uh, hi..?"

Percy's eyes lingered on the kid for a second, _he looked so much like him_ , such a younger and more alive version. His hair dark and messy. His eyes though, Parker's were brown, unlike his. He forced himself to look at Happy. Stretch out his hand toward him. "Long time, Happy," he said as they shook hands. Then he turned to the boy. "I'm…" It took him a split second to decide whether he was going to give it to the kid…his name or an alias. "Percy Jackson," he said, as the kid grabbed his hand and shook it firmly.

"I'm Peter," the kid replied with enthusiasm. "Parker," he added messily after. "Did Mr. Stark tell you about me? You know who I am? Are you an Avenger?"

He chuckled slightly. If this wasn't every teenager he wouldn't have, but Peter seemed like a good kid, and he thought that from that conversation alone. Those few sentences he got out in such a hurry and excitement he almost tripped over them. It was cute, in such a not gay way. Not that he had anything against that…just—not the point.

He thought for a moment whether it'd be rude to tell him that Tony had indeed shared his secret identity with him when he shouldn't have. When it was a secret identity. Then thought against it. Lies were never the right way to go. "I do know who you are," he said after they'd both let go of the other's hand. "Let's just say that Ton— Mr. Stark has a loose tongue when he's drunk. Everyone does. And ah…I work _for_ the Avengers. I used to be a SHIELD agent."

White lies.

Loose ends.

No one would hold it against him.

The kid might just become the newest member of the Avengers, but until that was one hundred percent a fact, and he knew he could trust him…His identity as The Swordsman would remain a secret only for the old guys. Until he could learn to trust the fifteen-year-old kid. Otherwise, it was okay to give him a half-truth until such a time.

"That's so cool—" he was saying when he got interrupted.

"What's so cool?" Tony said as he walked towards them. "The compound? I know I built it. Glad you like it. How was the ride up?" he added lastly as he turned towards Happy. Percy caught the almost invisible wink Tony sent him, and something inside of him turned. Annoyance at his arrogance perhaps…to just walk in on a conversation and dominate it from there on.

What else could he expect though, this was Tony Stark, and he was different in open spaces like these than he was behind closed doors.

Tony's eyes had moved to Peter before Happy got the chance to reply, although he did, with a solid: "Good."

Percy watched as the word seemed to enter through Tony's left year, get processed in his brain, and then be thrown out through his right ear. "Give me a minute with the kid," he said and it was meant to both of them.

That's where Percy sort of lost it. "Seriously?" he asked in a monotone, and he knew that Tony understood exactly what he was implying by that. He'd asked him to come all the way here, change into appropriate clothing, stop his workout routine just to _give him some space_.

"Yeah," Tony replied quickly, he was jumping a little on his toes, as he looked at him. "I gotta talk to the kid." His eyes were then back on the kid. It was then that it _hit him like a rock_ , to Percy. What Tony saw in the kid, and if he didn't know better, he would say that Peter Parker was going to be the definite end of Tony Stark. _No way out of this one Tones_.

"I'll be close behind," Happy told him, his voice sounded just as Percy's had. Annoyed and ticked off. But Happy's job was security and Happy loved his job.

A deep unsettling feeling was felt in his gut as Percy watched Tony's line of sight shift from Happy's to Peter and back to Happy. "How about a loose follow? All right?" He was already walking away in Peter's direction when he was saying, "Boundaries are good."

He was still on his feet where he stood as he watched Tony play punch Peter on the shoulder. Grin _proudly_ at him and then pull him by the shoulder before clapping him on the back. Starting to walk away, a grin on his face, the likes of which he barely saw on Tony. "Sorry I took your suit," Tony _apologized_. "I mean you had it coming. Actually, it turns out it was the perfect tough-love moment that you needed."

Happy began following, and it if it wasn't for that movement so close to him, he would have been stuck there forever. What was going on with Tony? He was going down a _very_ dangerous path, one which would one day lead to destruction and misery if he wasn't careful. They all had to be in the prospect of who they cared about, who they loved and cherished.

It was dangerous to care about someone doing what they did.

Tony had just barely gotten over half the team leaving…maybe it was a good thing that he was seeking new people, new personas…maybe not so good after all.

If something like what had happened with Steve happened again…it would kill him.

Tony sighed in front of them, and that's when he realized he'd missed some of their conversation…which didn't really bother him because his thoughts were probably more important. Plus in the distance, it had sounded like nothing but Tony talking and talking and Peter attempting just for Tony to talk more over him. Like he thought, it was _dangerous_. Tony barely got this… _hyper_.

"Mr. Stark, I really…" Peter tried saying, inclining his head down for a moment before looking back at Tony once the older man interrupted him for what must have been the third time.

"You screwed the pooch hard, big time," Tony said giving nothing away. "But then you did the right thing. Took the dog to the free clinic. You raised the hybrid puppies," he started rambling, trying to form a metaphor which he couldn't hope to understand. He noticed what was waiting ahead of him. A paneled wall, with a door on the side of it. "All right, not my best analogy," Tony agreed to himself as the lights to the paneled wall lit up at their proximity.

He had an idea of what stood behind that door. Simply hoped he was wrong for the same reason his stomach felt heavy.

Tony slowed his walking a couple of yards away from the wall. Pointed a soft finger at Peter. "I was wrong about you," he said, and there were probably no better words Peter could have heard at that moment if the look on his face was something to go by. "I think that with a little more mentoring…you could be a real asset to the team." That's where Tony was crossing a line.

Percy cocked his head sideways, even though he couldn't be seen from them and Tony would never get the questioning glance. Didn't mean it didn't need to be done though.

"To the…to the team?" Peter stuttered over his words. Luckily enough he was just as confused as Percy had been. His reaction just what he would have said had Tony been talking to him.

"Yeah, anyways," Tony said offhandedly, brushing off the confused look Peter was giving him. He pointed to the door next to the panels. "There's about fifty reporters behind that door. Real ones, not bloggers."

Percy gave it to Tony for that tone. For trying to make a joke when he was talking about _fifty reporters_ there to see the freaking kid. For trying to ease the tension that Peter must be feeling at the moment. However, Percy _didn't_ give it to Tony, when the man tapped his watch and the panel doors slid open automatically.

"When you're ready," Tony was saying as he stepped closer to the opening panels as a suit of some sorts emerged from the darkness. "Why don't you try that on?" And as if on cue, the suit came into full light and Percy took a step back.

It was a _Spider-Man_ suit. The colors were red and blue, and the design so similar to the previous one he might have not realized they were different but for the fact that this one was made of iron.

"And I'll introduce the world, to the newest official member of the Avengers," he said as he admired the suit he'd no doubt created. In the long hours, he'd been spending in his lab since the accident to now. He looked back at Peter then, putting his hands into his pockets. "Spider-Man."

Percy shook his head. He didn't want to ruin it for the kid, so he kept his mouth shut, but he did _not_ agree. If it weren't for that and for the fact that there were fifty or so reporters waiting for him, he would have said something. Would have spoken up and told the kid that Tony was joking, and glared at Tony so hard he would have shrunk away in the darkness and never come back up.

Tony was the main Avenger, he could give him that. He funded them, gave them all a place to sleep, paid for their expenses and he was grateful. But if they were going to bring a _fifteen_ -year-old kid to the fold, then they all deserved to know before he did it, not _while_ he was doing it.

They were going to have a chat after this was over.

A bit and long and overdue chat.

Peter slowly walked towards the _Iron Suit_ , mumbling an, "I…" followed by surprised and shocked chuckles. Giggles even. _At least one of them had a sense of good mind_.

"Yeah," Tony said, his arrogance coming off a little strong on that one. "Give that a look." It was a big and long five seconds before Tony spoke again since Peter wasn't. "So after the press conference, Happy will show you to your room," he started saying, turning to look and gesture at Happy before looking back to see if the kid was looking. He wasn't. "…your new quarters. Where's he between? He's next to Vision?"

Percy coughed, giving Tony a pointed look. "Vision's not really big on doors," he said, and at least that made Tony look at him, a look which he returned with a pointed glare. _What was Tony doing?_

Tony had a sheepish expression when he turned back to Peter, who still hadn't said anything about the suit or the whole situation. "It's fun," he said about the Vision thing.

"Or walls," Happy added.

Tony looked like a kicked birthday boy. Trying to salvage the mood both he and Happy were so obnoxiously ruining. "You'll fit right in."

Peter stepped back from _goggling_ at the showcased suit. Looked Tony right in the eye as he stood yet shorter in front of him. He bit his lip, and Percy's stomach lifted before he even opened his mouth, because he _recognized_ that look. He gave a look to the suit, _it was mesmerizing_. "Thank you, Mr. Stark," he started, and he sounded so serious and formal it was clear he was trying hard. "But I'm—I'm good."

He couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. Perhaps Tony had good character choices. He knew what to look in people, and seemed to pick all the right ones. People might say that Steve along with the others might be the exception, but he knew, as well as Tony knew that wasn't true. Everyone lied, some more than others, and what Steve did doesn't necessarily make him a bad person.

Surely didn't make Sam or Clint and even Wanda, bad people. Or Natasha for choosing the side that fit her best.

Peter was a good kid and his heart was definitely in the right place, there was no doubt of that. Didn't mean it wasn't still the right choice that he was denying to be an Avenger. Because it was. He was too young, he was too inexperienced. It was _unfair_ of them —of anyone— to put such responsibility and such a heavy burned on his shoulders when he was only fifteen.

He knew it had broken him.

He didn't wish that on anybody else.

Peter was a smart kid.

Tony was left speechless. Or as close as it got with Stark. "You're good?" he asked, and the confusion in his voice was as clear as the sky outside. "Good?…How are you good?" The last bit came out harsher, although he was sure he didn't mean it.

"Well I—I mean, I'd rather just stay on the ground, for a little while," Peter said, stuttering a bit at the beginning due to the tone Tony had used. "Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man," he ended a bit sheepishly and Tony's expression was definitely worth the awkward tension that had set in the room. "Somebody's gotta look out for the little guy, right?"

Tony snapped his glasses off his face in a smooth and quick motion. "You're turning me down?" he asked seriously, then his expression eased up. "You gotta think about it. Look at that." He looked at the suit, pointing it so that Peter also looked at it. "Look at me." Peter did. "Last chance. Yes or no?"

 _Perhaps he'd change his mind._

Percy respected Peter, even more, when he gave a solid, "No," without hesitation for a reply.

"Okay," Tony said just as quickly. "It's kind of a Springsteen-y working-class hero vibe that I dig. Happy will take you home," he said, as he scratched off at his right shoulder. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Happy said, stepping closer to them. Then he looked at Peter. "Mind waiting in the car? I need a minute."

Peter nodded, then looked back at Tony. "Thank you, Mr. Stark," he said.

"Yes, Mr. Parker, very well," Tony said back, looking a bit disappointed but very much pleased at the same time. They shook hands, Tony grasping his tightly. "See you around."

"Okay," Peter could all but say, as that light in his eyes sparkled brighter. He walked backward for a couple of steps, clapped his hands. Then faced him and said. "Nice to meet you Mr. Jackson," before he turned around and jogged down the steps. He stopped after them and turned around just as Tony was closing off the panel, and Happy had opened his mouth to start. "That was a test, right?"

Percy barely held in his chuckle. _It had most definitely not been a test_ , knowing Tony there were even more than fifty reporters waiting behind that door.

"There's…nobody back there?" Peter asked, and he found that nice of the kid.

Tony's hands were clasped behind his back. "Yes, you passed," he said, but the enthusiasm he had come in with was all but a whisper. "All right, skedaddle there, young buck," he said as he jokingly gestured for him to leave.

"Thank you, Mr. Stark," Peter called as he turned back and started to walk out, this time for real.

When he turned to Tony he was ready to laugh a little, embarrass him a little bit further. "Don't," Tony warned him, and he suppressed the chuckle to a smile. His expression still remained something he'd pay to see again.

"Told you he was a good kid," Happy told him, giving a sign of _What did I tell you_?

Which Tony replied with one that said, _What can I do?_

Then the door behind them opened, a man was seen opening it just before a redhead stepped through. It took him a moment for Percy to realize that it was Pepper. There was another topic they were perhaps going to talk about when this was over… _since there really seemed to be reporters on the other side._ He hadn't told him that Pepper was back. That they were _together_ again. Then again, it wasn't really any of his business.

The expression Tony made then, was even more priceless, one who mentally said, ' _Busted_ ' as she asked, "Where's the kid?"

"He left," Happy was quick to say.

"Everybody's waiting," she said just as quickly like she hadn't even cared to listen to his reply. Like him making some noise with his lips was her go to say her next phrase. Nothing bad.

Tony stopped her there. "You know, he actually made a very mature choice," he said as he gestured with his hands. "It just surprises the heck out of us."

Pepper did look at both of them, and Percy was not subtle at nodding his head. _Surprise_ was not really the word he would use for this. "Did you screw this up?" she asked him, as she faced him again.

Tony pointed at Happy. "He told the kid to go wait in the car."

Pepper stopped towards him. "Are you kidding me?" Happy opened his mouth to speak, possibly defend him, but she continued speaking before he could. "I have a room full of people in there waiting," she said, and Percy grinned. Pepper reminded him of Annabeth. Especially by the way she got close to him. "For some big announcement, what am I gonna tell them?"

"Think of something," he told her, and the way he said it…he knew they were going good. "How about…" he thought about it for about a split second before he turned to Happy. "Hap you still got that ring?"

 _Say what?_

Ring?

"Do I..I." Suddenly his eyes went wide as he searched his pockets as he suddenly jazzed up.

"The engagement ring," Tony clarified as if that wasn't already so _obvious_.

 _Engagement ring_.

"Are you kidding," Happy said incredulously, and he sounded just like he thought he would if he spoke. He continued patting his pockets. Then finally seemed to find something. "I've been carrying this since two-thousand-and-eight," he finished as he the ring emerged from the pocket.

Tony and Pepper both looked at it in different ways. Amused and horrified respectively. "Okay," Tony said with a breath of more amusement.

"I think I can think of something better than that," she said, and Percy so badly wanted to step away, this was a private moment. He didn't want to be there —scratch that, he did want to be there but not if she was going to say no. Which she hadn't yet…so there was hope…?

The way Tony looked at her seemed to change her mind as he said, "Well it would buy us some little time," he gestured between them. She kissed him, and he felt butterflies in his stomach. It was, in all the sense of the word, adorable. "Like we need time," he added against her lips.

She was smiling when she broke away and walked towards the door. Tony smiled at Percy, giving a wink before looking at Happy. "I can't believe you have that in your pocket," he said, then checked where his _girlfriend-soon-to-be-fiancee_ was and said. "Want me to get the door for you, honey?"

"I got it," she said as she opened it and walked through it.

He quickly caught it before it closed, turning back in time so that Happy could flick him the ring and he could catch it before walking behind them and letting them close.

Percy let out a long breath, then looked at Happy. "Did that just happen?" he questioned as he pointed at the door. "Are they actually getting engaged?"

Happy grinned. "I've been waiting for this for eight years, you have no idea."

.

 **Very close to the movie, yes, in fact, que reference: _Spiderman Homecoming 2017_**

 **So the story is also in 2017 rn, only a couple months more and it'll get into Infinity War. Like the next two chapters will be something in between, and then after that, Infinity War should begin. But you can rest assured I'll probably forget about that and make it way longer than it needs to be.**

 **Holy, this fic is already so long Idk how much longer it should go but like, I'm only so far... Like it'll have to go through Infinity War, and then Endgame, and then will it be done. That can either be another 50k words, or another 100k words. God no...I'll try to keep it within the 50k. This story needs to come to an end. Otherwise, it just drags on too long. So yes, next chapter will be cool, I think —I've actually already written it, and it was fun to write, so it should be fun— but after that one, things will be picking up, the gap will end and yes, Infinity War will come along.**

 **Do leave suggestions if you would like to see something, like an interaction between all these characters. I won't be able to fit everything, and if it's a pairing who I don't see working together, it might just not happen...But hey, it could give me inspiration.**

 **Anyways, thank you for reading this far, and I hope you had a nice day, or I hope you have a nice day.**

 **Hunter**


	33. They're Gone

**Holy moly, eleven days where I'm at, and then Endgame is coming out. And then I'll walk into the theatre, and spend three hours in there. Gods above I cannot wait.**

 **Enjoy:**

 **.**

 **X-X-Tu Quod Perit-X-X**

( _They're gone_ )

-.-.-

13th November

-.-.-

For one month things were good.

For one month everything was alright, nothing happened, except the compound was full of a happy Tony, and a love struck Pepper. Or so he believed she was, since she had said yes, to the marriage proposal, and she _did_ show off the beautiful ring on her finger every time she had to use her hands. Consciously or not, she was doing it all the time, and he didn't blame her, it was a magnificent ring.

He tried getting in contact with Steve's half of the Avengers, but they must have been somewhere where Iris' power did not reach, or something was interfering with the connection. Good or bad omens, he did not want to think about it. He told himself for a month that it was going to pass well, without disturbance and so he would wait before worrying.

He didn't manage to wait to worry, because as much as he had started to push the problems away, they caught up with him. To the point where he was woken up by an Iris message. In the middle of the night. Annabeth's voice yelling through, "Percy wake up!"

He had, and quickly so. His eyes focused on the shimmering and hovering message in front of him. He was without shirt, and the sheets of the bed were all wrapped around his body in a tangle. He'd been moving. He tried to wipe the sleep out of his eyes, to no avail. He looked at her, and found the whole image she was in to be very odd. But his sleep deprived mind could not pin point what was going on.

Not until he heard the yells and the screams that were coming through.

"Please, come," her voice was very urgent. "A fire was started. It's caught everything! Everything is burning. We need your help—" Something fell, not in his vision but in hers and cut straight through the message that was connecting them.

It was all the warning he needed before he was off his bed. "Friday, wake Tony and Vision up, please," he said to the AI as he hurried over to his closet and opened it. "Show them what just happened, and tell them to meet me in the lounge in five minutes. It's important, be quick!"

"Of course, Sir," the British accented voice of the AI replied back smoothly.

He thanked him with a mumble and then went to work on getting dressed. Not jeans and a shirt, but rather armor. Or well, what he wore as armor anyway. A tight thermo shirt, with on top leather armor. Cargo pants and boots, with beneath metal guards for both thighs as well as shins just to be safe. He then also strapped his sword at his waist and then he was out of the room. Running, down the corridors to the lounge.

All he could think about was Annabeth, and then there was Charlie. But prior to most it was Annabeth. How he didn't want her to get hurt. He'd had enough of her getting hurt, enough of seeing her hurt and in pain. For a life time. He didn't want her to suffer another minute and if camp was now in flames…

He understood why they would him to come and help. Jason could do so much, conjuring up clouds to get rain. He on the other hand could order the whole of the sea on long island to rise and wash through. Which was exactly what he was going to do. Slowly, and carefully so not to kill anyone or injure them, but that was the plan. What he also guessed they'd want him to do.

When he got to the lounge, both Tony and Vision were there, watching him. The Iron Man suit was behind Tony. He was the first to talk. "Take the suit," he said to him. "It'll shield you from the heat of the flames, and for god's sake be careful!"

He nodded and then unstrapped his sword from his waist. One command from Tony and the suit was launching towards him. Opening around him and then enveloping him inside. It wasn't his first ride. He'd been in one before. Let's just say that Tony had wanted it as a fail safe, if ever they got stuck somewhere the suit would be able to get them out, which meant they'd need to know how to use it.

He dropped the sword on the couch. He still had daggers and other smaller knifes on him, but they wouldn't be needed as long as he remained in the suit. Which he was planning on for the most part. He looked at vision through the vision the helmet of the suit portrayed. "I think I can do it on my own," he told them both. "Thanks."

"You have only to give us a call if you cannot," Vision replied to him, in his robotic voice.

He nodded at them, placed an earbud device in his ear and then, opened a window, climbed out of it and shot off in the night sky. He looked around the display in his vision and saw it was barely two in the morning. He zoomed for long island, hoping beyond anything, that he wouldn't be too late. That by the time he got there, the camp was not all ash, and that he could do something to help.

Against his better judgement, there was a part of him, that believed that every single one of the demigods in the camp should burn and perish and meet Hades in the underworld. That no soul in there was deserving of his help. But he wasn't like that. No one _deserved_ to die. No one should ever be left at the mercy of nature, if something could be done to help. No one. No matter their crime against anyone.

Plus, there were innocents in the camp. In over two decades it had grown. It wasn't just a camp anymore, it was a small city. A small city with families, old and young demigods. Children, legacies. He wasn't going to blame the young for their parents' mistakes. He wasn't going to punish them for what had wrongfully been done to him all those years before.

So he shot as fast as the suit would take him towards the camp. Towards a place he had once called home, and a part of him still did to be fully honest. The place was the beginning of everything, he could never fully stop caring for it. Could never look at it burn and turn the other way, not raising a finger to help save it. It was his roots. His whole self, came from the camp. So he was gonna help save it.

He saw the smoke before he saw the bright red fire.

The smoke was quantitative and thick and very much visible in the night sky. Below the smoke, there were clouds and lightning and rain was pouring down but it was not nearly enough to stop the fire that was raging beneath. Would never be enough. Would never be able to stop the fire before the fire spread further.

The rockets in the suit's feet accelerated at his command, and he saw the energy levels of the suit decrease at that. He didn't care, he had to get there. Make sure she was safe, make sure the child was safe. Then he would start helping them all.

He looked at the sky and cursed the gods loudly before speeding up towards the ground. He cursed the gods for all he was worth. There they sat, on their thrones watching no doubt, as their children suffered, and died and got hurt, doing absolutely nothing to change it. Watching only. They disgusted him, and they always would, for as long as he should live. Long had already passed since he had told himself he was not in this for _them_ but rather, he would thrive in the chance of killing one of them had he the chance…

"Search for one Annabeth Chase, Friday," he told the AI as he flew down, below the clouds and almost street level. He moved his head around, catching people's faces as they ran up and down the streets, away from the fire's all around them. There were children crying, there were kids hurting, stuck in places, and then there were senior demigods doing what they could to stench the fire. "Quickly."

He was in the city when Friday spotted her, and she was in front of a house. Her house. Someone else was there with her, it was only when he touched down on the street that he saw it was Jason. The smoke was thick, and he still hadn't opened the helmet. He would need to tell her to get out of here before she got poisoned because of it.

He stepped out of the suit. "Friday help where you can," he told the suit as said thing took off in the sky. "Get visuals to Tony." He then hurried towards Annabeth and Jason. Needing to climb over debris to get to them. He was holding her, and she was struggling against him, and the house was in flames, and she wanted to go towards it.

It took him a split second to connect it all together, and realize that someone —most likely Charlie— was stuck in the house. Jason was holding her back, and as he got closer to them, as fast as he could, he noticed that he was right to do so. Entering the house for her would be suicidal like this. She would die with one foot inside. His heart beat overly loud in his ear, as he thought about the child, _his_ child, in there. And hoped, hoped against all odds that he was still alive.

He would have landed closer to them had there been a way for him to, but there wasn't. He got to them, and upon seeing him, Jason let go of her. She didn't run towards him, but rather, hurried for the house. He was there to stop her. "Annabeth stop!" he told her as he shook her and slightly pushed her backwards. "I'll go in, okay. Let me do it. Just stay here, alright? Promise me, you'll stay here."

Jason was there again, holding her back. He nodded at him and, he still didn't like the son of Jupiter, but he nodded back, and then turned towards the house. He called upon his powers, already knowing this was going to exhaust him enough that he would wanna sleep for weeks after, but he was then creating a sliver of water. A tentacle sort of, and letting it flow in front of him. Ending the fire in the house. It took him more energy for that alone, than he would have thought, and it was all because there was so little water vapor in the air. So little it was so hard to get so much water in its liquid form out of it.

He walked into the house in a hurry, and then tapped into more of his powers, just to know where a body of water was. Just to know where the child he had learned to care for was, and his heart only beat with the hope that he was fine, that he was still alive. Although what were the chance, eh? What were the fucking chances.

He kept on walking, hurrying up the stairs into his room, where his powers were telling him he was. And there he was. He stumbled in the room. He was inhaling too much smoke, and it was getting to him, it was hard to breathe and too much more and he would lose the hold over the water he'd created. He hurried to the child, and he didn't stop to feel for his pulse. He picked up his kid, and then made his way outside.

Annabeth cried out at seeing him come out of the house with Charlie, and then hurried towards him. Jason followed. They helped him set the kid down and then he was coughing as they checked him out. As they opened up the collar of his shirt and then made sure he was breathing properly. The house collapsed behind them, and he flinched so hard he fell to the floor coughing.

Then he stood up and closed his eyes, raised his arms above his head and called upon every last drop of power he had left in him. All to move a huge body of water. He focused on the smell of the sea, far away now with the smoke around him, but he managed somehow. And the water rose. It rose and it rose and it rose until he felt the sheer weight of it would crush his mind.

He moved it then, and there was aid in that. He felt the godly presence helping him. As he crashed the water into the streets of both camp and the city, to rise over rooftops and extinguish the fire, he felt the god of the sea help him make sure he didn't catch any one person in the mean time of it. He felt his aid as his legs started to tremble and he let out a defying yell to the whole world.

The water swept in but it didn't touch them. It didn't touch anyone, and then the fire was gone, and it was so silent. There was no screaming and there was no rumbling of the fire burning and destroying and killing. It was all gone. The water was still flowing.

There was a moment where he was sure that Annabeth started talking to Charlie, and that Charlie talked back and that on its own gave him the last bit of strength he needed to push the water back to sea. No god helping him there. All on his own he raised gallons upon gallons upon gallons of water up in the air and directed it all back where it had come from.

The moment the last drop was out of his control he collapsed. His knees hitting the cold ground hard, but he didn't let himself fall down completely. Something else was also keeping him up, he looked in front of him to see _him_ , and he balked.

" _All of this could have been avoided,_ " the primordial of the pit said, his voice like scraping rocks. " _All you need to do is accept my offer_."

His vision darkened then, and he lost consciousness.

-.-

When he came to, he was laying down on a bed. As soon as he opened his eyes he saw the harsh light of a lamp in front of them, and then someone was holding his hand. He knew it was Annabeth just by the feel of her skin alone. She was there with him, had been there with him for—

He stood up in bed abruptly, swinging his legs off the bed and stopping there when a migraine hit his head so hard. He closed his eyes and brought his hand to his head.

"You shouldn't be up," Annabeth's voice broke through the pain in his head. Then she raised something to his lips. "Here," she said as he felt the glass on his lips. "Drink, it'll make you feel better."

He took the glass in his own hands and took a sip from the nectar canteen. He looked at her, looked at himself, feeling glad that he was still wearing his own clothes. "How long have I been out?"

"Half an hour," she told him after he gave her the glass and she set it down on the counter. "Camp leaders are talking now on what it could have been," she then added. "What it was that caused it."

He would care about that in a moment. "How's Charlie?" he asked her.

"Alive," she said and suddenly had tears in her eyes. "Thanks to you. Gods, Percy I don't know what I would have done. You saved him. You saved all of us."

He tried to smile, but found he didn't have much strength in him to do so. "Where are they?" he asked her as he pushed himself off the bed with his arms. "I need to talk to them, I know who did this," he told her, suddenly remembering the being he'd seen, and the thing he heard.

He was scared beyond doubt about it, and his whole body knew it. His whole body was shaking, and it was weak, it was _weak_ , if he came he wouldn't be able to fight him! Goddammit! He Pushed her away and got to unsteady feet. He barely made it to the wall that he threw up, needing to hold the edge of it with the doorframe to support himself. She was there immediately, holding him, a hand on his back and another on his head, pulling stray locks out of his face.

He wiped his mouth with his arm and then continued walking.

He'd been in a room all for himself, but the medical bay was _full_ of people. Old and young, some were covered to the head, and others were being taken care of by sons of Apollo's and other demigods who were better off than the ones they were tending. In one corner, there were rows, upon rows of the dead. He felt dizzy so suddenly, and he felt so sick. So, so, so sick. Guilt because… _all of this could have been avoided_ , if he'd taken the damned deal.

Annabeth was talking to him, but he couldn't hear her. Her hand was holding his arm, but he didn't want her to touch him. She knew about the deal, but he didn't want to tell her he'd seen him again. Didn't want to share that with her, not yet anyway. His whole vision swam, focusing in and out and in and out. He felt sicker still, but he needed to find out _who_ had started the fire. See if somehow, he'd gotten to them, like he'd gotten to so many others.

He stumbled a couple of steps and then saw a walking stick hinging up one wall and he took it. He also shrugged off her arm, and started walking out of the infirmary. He stopped when he saw Charlie, sleeping, peacefully on one of the beds, other kids around him. He stopped and he stared _at his son_. Black smoke cinders coating his face and it was _his_ fault.

After that he hurried outside, so suddenly feeling so hot and like there were flames around him all over again. The moment he stepped outside the cold hit him and he embraced it. Yes…he embraced it. Raising his head to the night sky and breathing in deeply the still rotten smoked air. It was better than having been inside with all those people hurt.

He walked towards the Big House, because…the infirmary wasn't in the Big House anymore, like it had once been. No, a whole new building had been built for it. The iron man suit was still in the air, helping out. So he walked to the Big House, half aware that Annabeth was following him, keeping a distance. He walked into the Big House when he reached it and then made his way to the meeting room, like he remembered.

He ignored the looks of the demigods sitting at the couches, or wherever, them waiting for the _leaders_ to walk out and explain to them what had gone wrong. He simply walked over them and then opened the door and stepped through.

"This is a private—" the words quickly died away in the son of Jupiter's throat as he realized it was him. "Percy, you shouldn't be up so soon."

"I can decide for myself," he said as he scanned the room for the people in it. Jason was there, as was Leo and there was a little girl next to him. Calypso was there with them as well. Clarisse was there as well, and then others he didn't have the time or will to recognize. A councillor to Apollo, one to Demeter, and then others he didn't know. Piper was missing, he realized, probably hospitalized like so many others. A Hermes councillor was also missing, as was one from Dionysus.

He eyed the chair for Poseidon's councillor, technically his, but didn't make a move to sit in it. Annabeth stood right next to him, ready to catch him should the cane he was leaning on not be enough. He ignored that, because it made him feel embarrassed the more he thought about it.

He kept on scanning the room, and then his eyes set on the little girl next to Leo, in between him and Calypso. Their daughter if he had anything to say about it, and well, she looked enough like her father that it was obvious. His eyes set on her, and she noticed, taking a step back. He looked her up and down, both she and her father were clean of smoke dust, which led him to one conclusion and one conclusion alone. She was like Leo. She could control fire.

 _Very well_ … A voice spoke in his head and chills ran through his whole body. His body stiffened up, muscles clenching and suddenly he had the worst thought that his suspicion had been correct. He was filled with energy now, and letting go of the walking stick, he walked around the table, all eyes set on him, and then grabbed her and pushed her to the wall. Just a child but he was ruthless.

"Percy!" Annabeth yelled after him indignantly when she saw him treat her like that. Leo and Calypso both made a start, as did about every other councillor. He was quick, with newfound energy the source which was anger, to turn the water vapor into ice in an instant, and they couldn't get to him.

He grabbed her arm, and pulled up her sleeve.

And there it was…a silver bracelet, _his_ emblem on it.

He looked at her eyes, and saw the abyss that were Tartarus'. He grabbed her throat in an instant and glared into her eyes. Until he was gone and then he let go, instead forcing her hand up to her eyes. "Where did you get this?" he demanded of her. "Eh? Where?" he asked her, as he forced the bracelet off her hand. He dropped it as soon as it was off her wrist. It had been poisoned, like the other one had. With Polybotes' venom, which in this case targeted _him_ specifically, and it had hurt like a bitch.

He ignored the bracelet on the floor, but caught through the corner of his eyes, Annabeth catching on. He hadn't told them about the bracelets, but he'd told _her_. He'd told her because he trusted her, and she knew what was going on. If things went further south than they already were, he hoped she would have his back. Because things were going to go much further south.

He grabbed her by the collar, she was a child, she started crying. "Where did you get it? Hey?" he asked her again since she wasn't answering. He heard complains from Leo, telling him to back off, but he ignored them. "Who gave it to you? Or did you find it and picked it up because you're a fucking child who doesn't understand anything! Give me an answer!"

"I don't know!" she cried, sobbing. "I don't know I swear. Please don't hurt me."

And that was like a trigger, because he took his hands off her in an instant. She was just a victim, and he was taking it out on her, a child. He let the ice barrier down with half a thought and not one second and a fist was colliding with his face. Whatever energy he'd had boost him before was completely depleted, and he fell to the floor. Saw Calypso moving towards the child, hugging her. Annabeth went for the bracelet.

Leo got on top of him, and there was no one stopping. "How _dare_ you do that to my little girl?" he asked and then punched him in the face again. He felt his skin break at that.

Then the door opened and all heads turned towards it. Nico was there, looking for better or worse like everyone else. There was blood leaking down the side of his face. "The Giants' weapons," he said, panting. "They're gone."

.

 **Yes, they're gone, and I still haven't written the next chapter, I feel like life is catching up on me.**

 **But I still cannot wait until Avengers: Endgame comes out, and I'm sure none of y'all can either.**

 **Hope you enjoyed, again, reviews boost the story up, so they'd be appreciated.**

 **Hunter**


	34. The End of the Beginning

**Hello, welcome back, stick around to the end, if you wanna read a one very spoiler full review of Avengers: Endgame. In the meantime, please enjoy.**

 **Enjoy, please.**

 **.**

 **X-X-Principium et Finis-X-X**

( _The End of the Beginning)_

His whole world seemed to be tumbling with two simple words. _They're gone_ , Nico had said, and that had left for silence to reign over the room. Deafening silence. Everyone was looking at each other, defeated. He looked at Annabeth, saw her analyzing the bracelet Leo's daughter had had on her wrist, her face contorted in disgust and fear. As much as what was brawling inside of him at the moment.

Fear for everything that was going wrong.

The weapons the demigods had kept were gone…they were back at square one, with only so many of the Giants' weapons at the compound. All the others they'd managed to acquire were all gone. And it hurt because they had been played so badly and so good. A hand had been played and they had lost it spectacularly.

They'd gotten in their ranks through a little girl, and while she set fire to the camp, and every single demigod had been horrid about staying alive, their enemies had slipped into camp and stolen their most treasured possessions. The weapons, which they were now even more certain, would aid in killing the primordial of the pit. The fact that they were gone, that they were one step behind being able to finish him, scared him, because before he had a reason not to switch, not to use his life and spare that of those he cared about. Now there wasn't anymore, and he was scared by what he might do, as well as what might happen.

Nico sat down at his chair, and Jason followed suit. Leo got off him and slowly everyone sat back down. In silence. Annabeth held out a hand for him, and he clasped it and pulled himself up with it. He was so tired it wasn't even funny anymore. He flung his arms around her, being careful to steer clear of the bracelet in her hand, not wanting another run-in with the poison that was Polybotes'.

He pulled away and then looked over at the demigods around the table. He put his two hands on the table and used it to sustain his weight. "You're all idiots," he said without remorse.

And perhaps he was trying to find someone else to be at fault for it all happening. Perhaps he wanted to believe that it hadn't been _his_ fault for the fires. That it hadn't been all caused because of him denying the primordial.

He pointed at each demigod in the room. "All of you," he repeated. He then pointed at the little girl. "She was under Tartarus' control, for _weeks_ , and none of you realized!" he said, his voice rising in volume as he spoke every word. "Now look around you! You've got a burnt camp, a ruined city, and no weapons to kill the damned bastard."

 _And who's fault was that?_ His mind asked himself. _He_ had been the one not to tell them about the bracelets. He had the chance to tell them, to share it all, but he hadn't done it. And now they were all paying the price for it. Everyone was. It was hard not to feel guilty for that at that point. It was really hard, yet he still needed to push a point across, they were asses, and they were idiots. And it felt like no one told them that enough for it to have stuck in their head.

He saw the bracelet, next to him. His hand hovered over it, hesitating. Then he grabbed it and slid across the middle of the table. "The cause," he told them all. "Have that around your wrist and you're done for. Your mind is his. Your actions, are his." He turned to Leo. "And your daughter was his and both of you were so god dammed blind you didn't even notice!"

He swayed on his feet and lost some of his balance. "You were right," he said to no one in particular. "I should not be up." He touched his ear, where the earbud he'd stuck in before the night had really started was. "Friday, come pick me up. Bring me home."

They watched him simply, their eyes big and wide and confused for a good ten seconds as he held himself against the table. Then the iron man suit was opening the door, and wrapping around him, and as the metal closed around him, and the darkness swept in, he let it take him under as the suit brought him back to the compound. His new home. His real home.

-.-.-

20th November

-.-.-

He slept for days after that night. Days where his body begged him to simply rest as soon as he woke up. Where his body would not allow him to do any sort of physical exercise, or he would end up vomiting his guts out. Many times, when he woke, Annabeth was there by his bedside, a book in her hand as she read. Some times he'd get her attention, ask her to help him out. Other times he'd barely acknowledge her before going completely under again.

It was almost a state of limbo, which had never happened before.

He'd exerted himself too much in too little time. He'd opened the dam to his powers and let it all out at the same time, leaving for no single drop to be left behind. He'd burned out in fact by the end of it. Burned out completely, and…if his father hadn't given a hand, and he'd forced himself to go further, he was sure he could have even died.

It was upon realizing this, that he decided to let his body rest, for as long as his body asked it. If it was days, so be it, if it was weeks, then so be it as well. Except it wasn't weeks.

In the first few days, he had tried to get back into normal life quickly, and upon seeing the effects it had on his body, he decided to take it slow. But by the end of the week, he wasn't sleeping all day, instead, spending more time awake, lying in bed, or walking around with a cane, but he was awake and well on a good road to recovery from the almost burn-out he'd had.

Annabeth was always there by the end of the week, and sometimes so was Charlie. She was the one to tell him there was a meeting occurring, and he was the one to tell her that he wanted to attend. So she helped him get cleaned up, and then dressed, and then together they made their way towards their meeting room. He with one crutch and she simply following behind, making sure he didn't fall.

They entered the room, where Tony was sitting at one edge, Rhodes next to him, and Vision on the opposite side. All that was left of the Avengers, he noted, as he took a seat next to Vision, and Annabeth sat next to him on the other side. There was a glass of water in front of him, and he was quick to drink it all up, energizing himself for the meeting to come.

"The corpse is walking," Tony said, slouched on the couch, wearing a suit and tie, he gestured to him, and then clapped softly, resting his hands on the table and sitting upright. "So, meeting's in order now that we have our coma patient with us—okay bad joke." He looked at him and offered a tired smile. He acknowledged it was nine in the evening. "Anyway, we are meeting here, because, your demigod friends, actually managed to screw us over in a not so bad way."

He leaned back in his chair. Annabeth filled up his glass again and he thanked her. "What do you mean?" he asked Tony.

"Well," he said, again gesturing. He flipped out his phone and connected it to the screen. An image of a burnt camp showed. "While this happened," he said as he swiped through images. "These were stolen," he said as he showed the weapons the demigods had. "But, turns out, that they actually managed to get some of them back. Which, we are still not sure, but it doesn't look as bad as it looked a week ago. Also with you uh unconscious all the time."

"What the hell was that even?" James Rhodes asked him, raising a brow in confusion. "Like you leave, and then you come back unconscious in the suit, and Friday just says, 'he exhausted himself'."

He grimaced. "I pushed it over the limits," he said slowly. "I don't know if while Friday was taking pictures of all that, she also caught on to the wave that literally washed over all of camp. Gallons upon gallons. Then also making sure it didn't hurt or drown people. I really pushed it. Which I shouldn't have. And if my…uh… _father_ didn't help me with it, I could have probably died from the strain."

"Your father?" Tony asked, pointing. "Like the dude, I met a couple of months ago? Uh…figures."

"Not really," he told him. "Anyway, going back to the problem. The weapons? Give me a head count."

Tony looked at him for a moment, almost like he was asking, _you giving me orders now, Jackson uh?_ Then he replied to him, turning to the screen and showing pictures again. "Look, we had nine at first, right. They gave us three because they apparently found that appropriate, kept the other six. Five of the other six were stolen yesterday night though, in the midst of all of the chaos the fire caused. The one the puffy guy, I mean I don't believe he's puffy, more like buff, as I've seen him pull a mean swing— but anyway, him. His weapon wasn't stolen. He still holds it in a tight bracelet with pride." Smile from him.

He looked at Annabeth. "Leo told me that he wants to apologize," she told him and he scoffed, but upon seeing her serious expression remain a serious expression, he stopped. "He talked to his daughter a couple of days ago, and well, he contacted me, wants to know as soon as you're able he's gonna come over and formally apologize."

"You can tell him to save it," he told her, and he hoped she'd back him. "It's a waste of time. Time he could be using either tracking down the weapons his daughter allowed to be stolen, or building weapons which we can use once it starts."

She nodded. "I'll tell him that, although I'll try to make it sound a bit better since this isn't so nice," she told him. "But fair enough. Another something is that they want to meet, properly, all of you, and all of us. As in all of our leadership. Not just two or three of us. The Romans want to have a senate meeting, including Greek counselors and then all of you remaining. Just to actually go over everything, strategize and whatnot. The sooner you accept the sooner we can set for a date, all meet."

"Strategize?" Tony asked. "What for? We do our thing and you do your thing. We're not gonna be part of you legions or something. We're fighting the same evil, the same guy, but we do it the way we fight, together amongst ourselves, and you fight the way you fight, and I don't know how you fight so I can't say. But there really won't be a need to what—? Sit down and talk. No thanks."

"Tony," Rhodes said slowly. "Please, I actually think it would make sense to sit down and talk it over. All of them with all of us—"

" _All of me against all of you_ ," Percy said, trying to make his voice sound robotic, and Tony looked at him baffled. Then he covered his face with hand and started laughing. Percy joined him in laughing, and soon there were more than one of the other looking at them with an odd expression.

Rhodes was the worst, he slapped his hand on the table. "You two are the absolute worse, what in the name of God."

Tony pointed at him. "Hey watch it there," he said so seriously, it had Percy laughing more. "Two children of god _s_ are present. It might offend them if you talk about them in the singular." Tony turned to him. "Right? Do they get pissed for this kind of thing? I think they'd be the kind to get pissed off for this kind of thing."

He stopped laughing and rather only shook his head, a smirk so bad on his face. No one else was amused, but hey, none of the others —except Vision, but Vision was Vision— had been there in Sokovia, so they didn't get the joke. Technically Rhodes had been there, but not for the one line that Ultron had delivered that he now brought up. It wasn't even funny, but right there, something was ticking both he and Tony off. Probably the whole situation they were in.

He raised his hands, although it hurt to do so —everything in him hurt to move. Everything, it was as terrible as it could get. "Alright that was out of the blue, you all have my deepest apologies, I swear," he told them all very solemnly.

Tony looked at him, his lips pursed, and then burst out laughing again. He didn't know _what_ was so funny, but he found himself laughing again. He really believed Tony had hit his head or something. Just laughing like this, wasn't really like him. "Oh my god, Percy," he suddenly said, as if coming to a sudden realization. "I've just thought of something."

"And what would that be, Mr. Stark," he asked him, trying to sound as serious and formal as he could. Again, no one was amused. He didn't know what he was doing.

"What if…I build the iron legion again?" he said, and this time he looked at Rhodes too. The colonel slouched in his seat and covered his face. So done with Tony. But Tony actually was serious about it. He was…in other words— _drunk_ on another level. "I mean it would make sense right? If it's all of them, and all of us, then boy are we outnumbered. What are you, like a thousand?" he rhetorically asked Annabeth. "We're like _four_. The iron legion…would give us some ground. Why should they get to fight so much, and we do nothing right?"

Rhodes stood. "Tony shut the fuck up," he said and that snapped sense into _him_ , he wondered if Tony's look of surprise was anything to go by and believe it had also snapped sense into him. "You're not building more of you, because last time you did, your robots leveled a city, alright—"

"To be fair, I didn't build those little bastards—"

"Okay no, this is where you listen!" Rhodes cut him off sharply. "You're drunk beyond your ass. I don't even want to know why that is. But you don't come here, act normal, and then fall into this dumb self as soon as Percy, who by the way, thank you for triggering this, says something stupid off his ass. Honestly, between the two of you, I don't know who's worse."

Tony rolled his eyes. "I'm not _that_ drunk, Rhodey," he said. "Not more than I am usually anyway. Point is…calm down."

"Calm down?" Rhodes asked. "You want me to calm down? Then start acting like an adult, will you? Thank you."

Tony looked at him with another eye roll, but Percy wasn't in that mood anymore. He listened to Rhodes, and he calmed down. He knew the meeting had been called for a reason, and he knew it could have probably happened without him, but anyway, he found himself turning to Annabeth and taking Tony's side. "Look," he started. "What I think he was trying to say, is it doesn't matter whether we strategize or not. We'll do our thing, and you'll do your thing. I mean also, when has a battle plan actually been followed through. You know what I mean?"

Her lips were tight, but she nodded her head. Then her features softened. "Are you okay?" she asked softly, almost a whisper.

He smiled at her, trying his best to mask hoe exhausted he really was beneath everything. "Yes, I am," he told her, and he tried to sound as sincere and honest as he could. "I'd tell you otherwise."

Rhodes cleared his throat. "If you two are done," he interrupted. "We would like to go through the next point of this meeting. Which is simply to say that our search for Thor and Banner—"

"Has —like all other check-ins— been absolutely a waste of resources," Tony finished for him. He seemed to be more aware than he had been just a minute before. "I've got all satellites up and running searching for Banner but the guy is nowhere on the radar. And well, we know Thor left to find those…he called them _infinity stones_ , the little gems." He gestured to Vision. "Anything you wanna add?"

Vision looked at him as if the first time he was actually in on the conversation going on around him. "Actually, I have reason to believe that they might come into play sometime soon. Like it's warning me."

"What do you mean it's warning you?" Annabeth asked him.

Vision looked at her with his overly complicated irises. "It would be hard to explain, per se, but…like a _gut feeling_ , I'd say."

"Perfect," Tony said.

Rhodes looked from Vision to Tony, and then back to Annabeth as, apparently, she was the only one with her really in what they were saying. "Next, its about Steve," he said and caught Tony rolling his eyes again. He was still not over it. He hadn't asked him about any of it in months. "Percy, you haven't met yet have you?"

He looked at Rhodes for a good five seconds before shaking his head. "I should have," he told him though. "Like it was planned. A day, a time, a place. They just didn't show up. Which I should have figured would have happened. I talked to them again, and they told me they got caught up doing something else. So I guess not. Then they also had no means to contact me. Let's say we haven't set a date yet. I don't think it wise to either. Perhaps it's better we keep the three weapons we have. Keep them here I mean."

"But then they won't get to practice," Annabeth said. "Get a feel of the weapon. Get ready for it."

He turned to look at her, moving his whole body, spinning on the chair. "I'm sure, they can all manage to use a spear. Especially Steve and Natasha. They're good fighters. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Any idea _where_ they are?" Rhodes asked, his brows raising in question. He shook his head. "Tony?"

Tony also shoo his head. "I haven't been looking," he actually told them. "They read the law, they broke it, it's not my problem what they're doing now. Like it shouldn't be yours, but I don't blame you for caring. After all, we were once great together, weren't we? Really thought it was something, but I guess we were all wrong on that. They tore us apart like cotton candy."

He really wanted to point out that the only reason they were on opposite ends of the earth, was because Tony —totally justified there— was pissed off at Steve —again, completely understandingly. If he wasn't, then they might have gotten to a start in rewriting the accords so that _Captain America_ would be able to then sign them. Accept them as they were and come back. So they could do this, _together_.

He tried to convey that then to the others. "I actually think there _is_ a way for us to get back together," he started. Tony looked at him like he was one word away from calling the suit to him and blasting him off his chair. Rhodes' eyebrows were raised in question. Vision looked at him questioningly, and Annabeth's brows were furrowed. "If we work on the Accords—I mean if we offer some sort of _redraft_ or something…make them better. So that we can still operate on our own free will, without needing to ask, so that it's good for them you know. Then everyone could sign. And if they don't, then we send them to hell."

"I am not part of your Avengers community," Annabeth said. "But I got an idea of what these accords are. They basically make you a group of elite fighters, and gives you a handler."

Percy leaned back on his chair. Rocking it. "Gives me _Winter Soldier_ vibes," he muttered which earned him a glare from Annabeth.

"What I'm saying is," she continued. "Right now you have a handler, and that's the UN, which is good. They're good. _Now._ But what about in three years? What if, Tartarus rises and they don't allow you to go? Then what? You don't come, you don't help us? Or you do and what? They arrest you. Or what if there's a fight, and, you don't think it's right for you to step in, but they send you anyway? The accords as they are now…if you signed them, you are basically forfeiting your rights to choose."

Tony sighed. "God you sound so much like him," he told her, poison in his words. "The accords, weren't the problem, kiddos!" he snapped. "The problem was that he lied, alright. Natasha did too, by the way." He leaned back and took a deep breath. "You all saw the footage from Siberia, right? We watched the car crash, Barnes murdered my dad, then my mom then shot out the feed. You know _Barnes_ looked upset—tears in his eyes. Steve? He lied straight to my face. I asked him _did you know_ , he said he hadn't known it was him." He raised his hands in a manner of _what can you do._ "So I went to Siberia to help them out, give them a hand. I knew Zemo was behind the bombing, hell I'd helped Steve get Barnes out of the CIA facility. But when it came down to it, I realized that— we were never a team. Banner was right. _We were a ticking time bomb_. I trusted him, but he didn't trust me. It seems like the whole team is like this. I trust you, but you don't trust me." He finished and looked straight at him, and Percy felt guilty. After all, he hadn't told him about his heritage for over three years. Perhaps he still held it out against him.

"Tony you know we trust you," Percy said, slowly, and carefully. "Maybe we don't share everything, but that's…who we are. You got three ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on the team. One army colonel. A demigod from another realm. A scientist who turns into a green monster. Steve, who's a man out of his time —I mean he's supposed to be dead. A witch, literally. And a super-bot. We're all misfits. Our secrets have secrets, man. Our lives were trouble and secrecy and just bad, since the day we were born. You can't expect to know everything about everyone." He was talking more for himself now than he was for Steve.

Tony shook his head. "You really just can't help it, can you?" he said annoyed. "Always go and make sense. Right. Damn it."

He didn't reply to that. "I am serious though," he told them all. "We need to _fix_ the accords. I don't care how we do that. But we gotta start _now_ otherwise how in hell are we going to win this without half of us. Come on."

"Fine," Tony told him. "Friday? Please open a new file, call it _Draft one of improved Accords_." He looked at Percy, almost challengingly. "Also, in the same folder make a copy of the other accords and put them side to side. Access to one Percy Jackson, James Rhodes, and Vision. Sorry blondie, got to keep this under lock and key." He smiled at her expression and then winked at Percy when he smirked. "Anything else?" Percy shook his head, no one else spoke up to say anything, so Tony himself stood, buttoning his suit. "Then meeting is adjourned."

.

 **And that is a wrap.**

 **Avengers: Infinity War will start from the next chapter. And it will carry on for four chapters, so that's for the next four months. Then there's gonna be a little gap chapter, and then Endgame will start, and...gods above, I am not ready to go there yet. Which is why it's gonna be five months before I need to upload a chapter.**

 **Sit tight, next week, Infinity War starts, and I am actually excited to share how it goes with you. I think it was...idk.**

 **Anyways, Endgame SPOILERS below, so stop reading if you haven't watched it yet.**

 **It won't be that bad, just...that movie was completely wild, and I will try my absolute best, and I swear on that, to paint Tony Stark as the amazing character it was. I know I haven't done him half the justice he deserves. I think half the magic behind the character was the actor, but I read the comics as well, and Marvel, as well as the Cinematic Universe, did him real dirty. Like for real.**

 **Almost every character was done dirty in the long run but in the MCU, Iron Man was the one they fucked up the worst. Which is perhaps why so many people liked him best because they related to him. He displayed a real human, he was just _a man in a can_ , and when he fell, it was going to hurt. And it hurt him real bad. **

**So, it was really dirty, especially endgame, they gave him everything, a wife, a daughter, peace, a farmhouse, stability. Of course, Peter was missing, and it was the reason why he helped, but then he lost everything. And everything, leading up to the snap, was just, punch to the gut, and punch to the gut. Two minutes in the fight and he was knocked unconscious by Thanos, ' _Boss, wake up_ ' and he was out of it until Steve was all like ' _Avengers Assemble_ '. I watched the movie twice, and when I heard that the second time, it was a punch to the gut. Because he was already in really bad shape since the beginning. **

**Then the fight continued, and he was fighting back to back with Pepper which was...it was really something. Then Peter...the hug, god. That was so right. It was just...right. Fan pleaser at its best. First and the last hug ever, I guess. And then he was fighting Thanos again, and his helmet was broken, and he got punched in the head again, and he's no Steve, he hasn't got super strength, so then he had the stones, and like the fuck.**

 **Rightest way for him to go. If Iron Man had to die, then this was the best way for him to go. Nothing else would have given it justice. He was the beginning of the Infinity Saga, and he was the end. And it began and ended with the same line, ' _I am Iron Man_ '. First, it's I _am_ Iron Man, and then it's _I_ am Iron Man. Which is... _the suit and I, are one_. **

**Then well, the movie was just absolutely fantastic, and so many things I just wanted to see happen, happened. And I was so pleased with the end of the movie. Another example, Howard Stark. Tony meeting his father in 1970, that is something...like Tony meeting the good version of his father. The version of a man who loves his job, and although isn't the best with his wife, he _will do anything for their unborn child_. Which he doesn't, and Tony loving him _I just remember the good parts_ , and _thank you, for everything_. It was just something that was just...perfect. **

**Also, Captain America holding Mjolnir...that was—of course, he was worthy. He was worthy since Age of Ultron, and he is the worthiest man alive. And the whole scene where all the dusted come back just gave me chills. And then, when Natasha died. That was built up so damned well that it was crazy. Damn whoever didn't feel any sympathy whatsoever for her. For both of them. Because even though we don't get a lot of history on her, or a lot of screentime for her and Clint, it's still very clear that it was heartbreaking for both of them. Which was heartbreaking for us, or well, for me.**

 **Then...well obviously, Tony getting back to earth and ' _I lost the kid_ ', and ' _Tony,_ we _lost_ '. Because even though they were galaxies apart, they were still _we_ in Steve's eyes, which is great. Which leads me to my next point. Tony was mad at Steve and it was so damned justified. _I said we'd lose, you said 'we'll do that together, too_ ' _Our best work_ after _the fact. We're the_ Avengers _. We're the Avengers? Not the pre-vengers._ It was heartbreakingly well done. Props to him. ' _I got nothing for you...No trust. Liar._ ' It was just so damned good. Something we've all been waiting for since 2016, and been robbed off from last year, and then...this year...it did not disappoint and my heart was in my throat when they were talking. " _Tony, I need you to focus_ -" _And I needed you, as in past tense._ It was too good. **

**Which then evolved to: _You trust me?_ I do.**

 **Of course, you do.**

 **But whatever restraint on tears I had just evaporated to nothing when they showed Iron Man there, on his way to death, and Peter, crying, _we won...you did it...I'm sorry...tony_. For the first and the last time. Wow. And then Pepper. _We'll be okay. You can rest now_. Like no. Spoiler alert for this fic, this is very much canon compliant, and therefore, he will most likely die, because it wouldn't be right if he didn't. It'd be like a stain. **

_**If you play this back I hope it's in**_ **celebration, definitely! Whatever is done, it's all in celebration of this amazing journey Marvel has allowed us all to hop on in, and enjoy. Everything. From fanart to fanfictions to whatever else. Celebration for the beauty that came from very creative minds, and their will to make it something so big and so loved and so beautiful.**

 **I'm not even gonna go into the Spiderman Far From Home trailer, but easy to say I cannot wait for that movie.**

 **Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk, hope you enjoyed the chapter. And stay tuned for more.**

 **Because more will come.**

 **Hunter**


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